Despite throwing shade at Nintendo ahead of its release, Sega has deemed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' sales to be below expectations.

In Sega Sammy's latest financial results the company singles out two of its titles that it deems to have "fallen short of expectation" when it comes to sales, despite good reviews for both. These titles are Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which garnered Metacritic scores of 82 and 87 respectively when they were released last year.

Sega confirmed earlier this year (thanks, Nintendo Life) that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was still hovering around the previously announced one million copies sold mark, and given that Sonic x Shadow Generations the year prior had sold over three million, and Sonic Frontiers sold just under five million, Sega clearly had higher expectations for the project.

Last year was one of the biggest years for the kart racer genre to date – granted, it would've been huge with the launch of the first Mario Kart game in 11 years in the form of Mario Kart World alone. But Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Kirby Air Riders also released in 2025, meaning the typically niche genre was pretty crowded.

Ahead of launch, Sega threw a bit of shade at Nintendo with an ad making fun of "the open road," quite obviously in reference to Mario Kart World's open-world pivot and the prevalence of controversial intermission tracks in the game. Plus, the game's creative director Masaru Kobayakawa spoke about the Sonic Racing rewarding skill instead of luck, which also felt like a reference to Mario Kart.

According to Nintendo, as of March 31 this year, Mario Kart World had sold just under 15 million copies, and sure, it may have been helped along by the somewhat generous console bundle that arrived alongside the launch of the Switch 2, but Mario Kart always does well. However, the way more niche Kirby Air Riders is also seemingly out in front of Sonic Racing, at 1.87 million copies sold.

Personally, I had all three kart racers on my top 10 games of last year, so for me it was a three cakes situation, but I definitely didn't think it was the best time for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to release. But given CrossWorlds released on seven platforms, I can somewhat understand why Sega would be disappointed.

10 years ago, Sega said "we're done with Sonic," and it was up to Takashi Iizuka to save the series: "Sonic was really at a low point."

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The Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary has landed, as it's been 35 years since the first game launched on June 23 in the US way back in 1991. That means we'd had almost four decades spent on this planet with the blue blur, chilli dogs, cheesy quips, and the iconic Green Hill Zone, whose 16-bit music still remains in my head rent-free.

I don't want to linger on Sonic's age too much, as that'd mean coming to terms with my own old age. But the series' longevity means that plenty of the best toys out there are based on Sonic and friends, should you want to start collecting them. There's everything from official Squishmallow plushies featuring Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, to PEZ dispensers, game controllers, and cookbooks. An order up of Chili Dogs, anyone?

To help get you started, I've gathered together a Death Egg-sized lot of some of my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog collectibles out there today, including plenty of pieces I own myself. Everything I've included is officially licensed by SEGA, too, so you can feel assured that you won't find a faker. Y'know, unless you're looking for Shadow the Hedgehog merch in particular, of course.

Check out our round-up of the best Lego sets and the best Nintendo gifts for more radical video game toys and collectibles.

Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka reveals Sega was ready to give up on Sonic at the low point of its history.

Sonic has had many ups and downs throughout its 35-year history, and while the classic line of "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D" isn't exactly accurate, given how beloved the Adventure duo is, the mixed reception to Heroes, before the triple bill of Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Genesis, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), led the series to a low point.

And while Sega did bring things back around with the beloved Sonic Colors and Generations, the series was right back in the bad books with the likes of Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and Sonic Forces.

And while Sonic has always had a dedicated fanbase, his reputation wasn't the best, so much so that Sega delisted sub-par Sonic releases in 2010, ironically just before the worst Sonic game ever made – Sonic Free Riders – was released.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Iizuka acknowledges "there's been a lot of ups and downs in our history," and recalls "There was even a time when Sega said, 'You know what? We don’t need you to make any more Sonic games. We’re good. We’re done with Sonic.'" He adds, "10 years ago, when I first moved to America, Sonic was really at a low point, and they [Sega] said, 'Iizuka-san, if you don’t go over to America and don’t start building this up and raising Sonic back up, Sonic is going to end, and we’re just going to be done with it.'"

10 years ago was 2016, which would place this moment as just over a year after the release of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, a game so disastrously buggy that it instantly became a meme for glitches like Knuckles' infinite flight. While the next 3D game in the series, Sonic Forces, was also slated, Sonic Mania, released a few months prior, is one of the most beloved Sonic games to date. Iizuka also thanks the fanbase for sticking with the series through those low points, saying, "It's really thanks to the fans that Sonic lives on.

Not to mention the Sonic Boom cartoon amassed a big fanbase, and of course, the movie series kicked off in 2020 – which Sonic voice actor Roger Craig Smith credits with launching "the notoriety of the character" into "a whole other stratosphere." So thankfully, Sonic seems to be back in a good place, even if Frontiers and Superstars aren't the most beloved games in the series.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

"OOF," I say out loud after wiping out trying to pull off a double backflip on my bike. Coincidentally, narrator dialogue says the same thing, adding insult to injury. That's OK though, because I'm a lazy tanuki with a big bouncy belly, and I hop back on my bike and rail-grind my way over to another ramp, this time using the sprint button and holding down jump to catch flight and give myself enough airtime to backflip twice and land safely with a satisfying flump. It's summertime. I'm applying for a job at the local yakitori restaurant. I'm delivering packages on a bike. I'm a freakin' tanuki. I'm playing Tanuki: Pon's Summer, and it really is Pon's summer.

I was sold on Tanuki: Pon's Summer within minutes after seeing its Steam page. Right behind black cats specifically, tanuki are my favorite animals. They're chubby little trash goblins, they hibernate by cuddling with other tanuki, and they're endemic to Japan, my favorite place in the world. You give that tanuki a bike and some sick BMX tricks, and my tail's a'wagging. You throw in grilled chicken yakitori, sushi, beer, and give that tanuki a job as a mail courier, and well, that is a video game I will very much want to play.

The new Tanuki: Pon's Summer demo released for this year's Steam Next Fest is fairly barebones, but what's on offer is so charming that I can't wait to play more after work. At its core, the game is all about cycling around town delivering packages to weirdos in effort to raise enough money to restore the town shrine before the Matsuri Festival. That gameplay loop is made infinitely more enjoyable thanks to the addition of a genuine, surprisingly in-depth trick system very similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. You can backflip, double backflip, do Superman moves, rail-grind, and rail-hop, and that's just what I can remember from my limited time with the demo.

Having played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 relatively recently, Tanuki: Pon's Summer is much simpler and more approachable by comparison. It helps that the cycling mechanics themselves are impressively smooth and intuitive, but the system itself is also a lot more forgiving. Like, you have to really beef it for the game to register your trick attempt as a fail and send you crashing to the ground. Most of the time, even if you land at a crooked angle against opposing momentum, the game will just autocorrect you and send you on your way. It makes rail-grinding and doing tricks something you idly do as you cycle between jobs rather than something you have to work to perfect, although maybe that'll change in the full game.

There's more – like, a lot more – to Pon's Summer than delivering packages, and you get a taste of some of it in the demo. Even as proudly strange as this game is, I was surprised to find myself tangling with a sumo wrestler at one point. I was equally surprised and delighted to find myself serving beer to patrons of a local izakaya. I was even surprised by just how cute and cozy Pon's homebase is, a little Hobbit-hole cluttered with trash and dimly lit by the changing hour and a retro TV and games console.

Everything from the level of detail in the food to the irresistible wobble with which Pon carries himself, is so innocently delightful. And I apologize for over-using that word, but it's very much intentional. I can't think of a better word to encapsulate what I felt playing Pon's Summer than delight, and so I will throw it around irresponsibly. In this increasingly cynical world, I think games like Pon's Summer will grow in demand in tandem, and although I've only played the demo, I'll be waiting impatiently for the full game to come out. And when it does, developer Denkiworks says demo progress will seamlessly transfer over, as it's essentially "the first arc of the game."

Here's a bunch more upcoming indie games to keep on your radar.

Sonic the Hedgehog actor Roger Craig Smith says the movies have sent the blue hedgehog's popularity to a whole different level.

Sonic games – as far as mainline entries in the series go – have been weirdly quiet this decade, with only Sonic Frontiers and a number of remakes, remasters, and spin-off titles to sustain it. But despite that, the series is bigger than ever thanks to the massively popular movie franchise that began in 2020 and is approaching its third sequel in 2027, with Sonic 3 being only the second video game movie to be Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (Werewolves Within was the first, despite the game's lack of notoriety).

Speaking to GameSpot, Sonic's long-time voice actor Roger Craig Smith – who joined the series with 2010's Sonic Colors (although his voice debut as the character was at the UK's Alton Towers theme park) – was asked about where the franchise is at right now. "I really think we're just at an exciting time," Smith says, "I never would have thought that this many years later we'd be, I mean, as large of a brand as the entire thing has become sort of globally now."

Smith acknowledges that Sonic has always been popular with gamers, but "the fact that the movies have done so well, it's like, it really has sort of launched the notoriety of the character kind of into a whole other stratosphere."

Although, despite Tails actor Colleen O'Shaughnessey reprising her role for the films, Smith has mainly been the voice for the game series (albeit with some voice cameos in the likes of Wreck it Ralph, OK K.O., and being the voice of the character in the shockingly good Sonic Boom TV show).

As for the future of the game franchise, Smith says "I don't know where it goes from here," and explains, "as voice actors too, we're always like the last to sort of find out anything." Although he says this is "for good reason" as voice actors could potentially leak projects, as Devil May Cry's Daniel Southworth and Assassin's Creed Black Flag's Matt Ryan can attest to.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka says he would love every Sonic game to be available on modern consoles, but thinks the effort involved would be better spent on new titles.

In case you weren't aware, there's a whole lot of Sonic games out there. Since 1991, there's been as many mainline console games as the entirety of Mario's mainline console and handheld games (that's with a six-year head start). But unlike Mario, where three of the New Super Mario Bros games and 3D Land are the extent of what you cannot play on the Switch consoles right now, there are a lot of Sonic Games that are simply unavailable on modern platforms.

And while some may be happy with not having the ability to play Sonic Heroes, Sonic 2006 or Sonic Lost World on modern consoles, there are absolute bangers like Sonic Adventure 2, the Sonic Advance trilogy and Rush duo that can't be played on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch (PC does have a few of them available still, however).

When asked by YouTube creator Jeremy Klinger which Sonic game he would personally choose to be remade for the franchise's 35th anniversary this year, Iizuka responded, "When we think about all the games in the 35 years that Sonic has been out there, I really want to be able to play all of those old games on the modern platforms." He continues, saying if he could "magically do it," Izuka would "want every single Sonic game ever put out there to be playable now on current hardware."

Unfortunately, however, "The cost that it would take to actually bring those games and have them not just be ported over, but actually be remade and be full experiences on that hardware" would be "about the same resource, money, or people's time and energy as it would to make a brand new title." Iizuka adds, "We're really focused more on making new experiences to surprise people."

Granted, I think many people would be happy with simple ports at this point. And with the GameCube on Nintendo Switch Online, we can easily get the Adventure games and Heroes on there. The saving grace, however, is that many older ports of these games are available on PC, and with a fan community as passionate as Sonic's, those have been updated into really good versions. Or in the case of Sonic Unleashed, a whole PC version was made by the fanbase, which is by far the best way to play the game.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Sonic the Hedgehog producer Takashi Iizuka thinks big-budget game makers could learn a thing or two from indie developers in the same way that major movie studios should be taking notes from this summer's biggest surprise success stories, Backrooms and Obsession.

The Blue Blur's trading dizzyingly speedy platforming for co-op puzzles in Sonic Pico Park, an upcoming spin-off game revealed at Summer Game Fest made by the developers behind indie hit Pico Park, naturally.

But Sonic Pico Park is part of a growing trend as AAA publishers increasingly work with indies on some of their big franchises - Ubisoft's The Rogue Prince of Persia and Konami's Castlevania: Belmont's Curse come to mind. So when GamesRadar+ had a chance to sit down with Sonic Team's Iizuka, we had to ask him what makes collaborations with indie teams so attractive.

"I can't really speak for the other companies and maybe what they're thinking, but you know, from a Sega perspective, we do realize that making our big titles, it takes a lot of time, a lot of money," he says via a translator. "It's a huge investment of, you know, the staff and the resources that we have, and then once you've invested all that time and energy into something, you really need to sell a lot of units in order to survive in the industry."

According to Iizuka, indie developers can instead generate an idea and then "very quickly" execute it before "moving forward and making more stuff." He reckons that's a huge lesson larger companies like Sega could "learn from the indie development scene." Not to mention, it's "really stimulating working with those indie developers, because you get to feel that that smaller team energy and that quickness of working to get an idea into an experience."

The Sonic producer then likens the AAA game industry's problems to what the movie business is going through right now. The summer box office's biggest story so far is how Disney's Mandalorian and Grogu, an expensive Star Wars blockbuster, was pretty easily outperformed by two scrappy horror flicks made by 20-something-year-old directors.

"It's a little bit a different type of media, but the movie industry is kind of going through similar issues that we in the game industry are going [through]," Iizuka explains, pointing to how studios like Disney are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on bets that will maybe pay off "many, many years from now."

"But then you see movies like Backroom and [Obsession], these much smaller creative efforts that are still becoming these great successful hits, so I do see a parallel in the movie industry to what's kind of happening in the game industry with the amount of investment and the actual entertainment that people are consuming and enjoying," he concludes.

Backrooms director Kane Parsons is seemingly considering a Portal movie “with a lot of caution and a lot of curiosity”

Toys for Bob developers have explained why they returned to Spyro instead of tackling a certain other Microsoft platformer series.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Lou Studdert, associate creative director on Spyro: A Realm Beyond, and Paul Yan, studio head at Toys for Bob, were asked why the studio chose to return to the Spyro series for its collaboration with Microsoft. While the team has worked on the franchise before, many wondered if the previously announced collab would be a new Banjo-Kazooie or any other game franchise Microsoft owns (including Crash Bandicoot, which Toys for Bob led development of for its last two games).

"Honestly, Spyro has kind of a deep place in our studio's heart," Studdert explains, referencing work on the Skylanders franchise, as well as the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. He adds, "We've always admired that kind of small but mighty underdog story of the character that's taking on these overwhelming odds, you know, we see ourselves in that a little bit, and honestly, it just was a no-brainer."

Studdert adds that "since we made Reignited, we have had the hope to take him further," and that "we always wanted to return to the world of Spyro, to bring that character forward, and so time was right, and we left it to chance."

Meanwhile, Yan notes that the studio was a bit more confident with the idea of taking on Spyro. "Going independent was taking on massive, massive risk, right? It's taking a bet on ourselves," he says, adding: "We knew coming out of Reignited – that title sold over 11 million copies, so there's an audience that woke up to show up for that series."

"Every year, every gaming event we hear the fanbase show up, like, 'when is there going to be a new Spyro title?' even before we had even pitched this," Yan explains. This in turn helped the studio in pitching the new title. "When we came up to Xbox and said, listen, here's our plan, we said, 'look, there's a community, it's loud and consistent, they know what they want, you're here to make this game, what else do you need, let's get this thing going."

Yan adds, "I'll say that we love Spyro, love Banjo, love all these types of titles," while shouting out the recent resurgence of platformer icons through Rayman Legends Retold and Astro Bot. "We've been doing this all along. It's not a new thing that we're shifting to, but we want to carry that type of experience into the world." He explains: "We think that the world needs these types of experiences, and we want to make them."

Spyro: A Realm Beyond devs "hope that this is the first of many" new games in the series: "We want Spyro to live on for a long time."

Xbox's slate for the next year and beyond is looking bright after its big Xbox Games Showcase, with Spyro: A Realm Beyond being one of the highlights as the iconic purple dragon finally returns with a brand new game for the first time in 18 years. But what about another beloved 3D platformer that's been out of the spotlight for just as long?

Fans have been begging for a new Banjo-Kazooie game for almost two decades at this point, and obviously, Xbox is aware – back in 2023, the now-former Xbox boss Phil Spencer boss teased: "You've seen from our history that we haven't touched every franchise that people would love us to touch – Banjo fans, I hear you."

It may have been a while since that comment, but speaking to GamesRadar+, executive vice president and chief content officer at Xbox, Matt Booty, isn't giving an outright 'no' to the idea. Looking at Spyro's revival, we bring up Xbox's vault of iconic IP – Banjo-Kazooie included – and ask if Booty sees a future where other independent studios (like Spyro: A Realm Beyond's Toys for Bob) could work with the publisher on its legacy franchises.

"We're in the great position that we have our first-party studios, we have first-party publishing, who [get] to work with great partners, like Kojima [Productions], and we also have all of our great third-party partners from around the industry," Booty begins. "We've got ID@Xbox, which brings in so many great partners that are kind of on a different part of their game development journey. It's all of it. So, I think the answer is there are options to do all kinds of things, and we're certainly looking at those all the time."

It's a vague response – obviously, Booty was never going to suddenly confirm that a new Banjo-Kazooie game is in the works – but it offers some reassurance that Xbox is at least considering all the options it has available to it.

Hell, Fable went dormant for long enough – until the announcement of the new Fable, the last main, numbered entry came out in 2010. Even if you're counting all the spin-offs like the now-discontinued collectible card game Fable Fortune, it'll have still been nine years since the last game by the time the new entry launches in February 2027.

For now, only time will tell what the future holds. Xbox is undergoing changes right now under its new leadership, notably changing course from its multiplatform strategy to have more Xbox-exclusive games – at least, some of the time, so it's a period of evolution for the publisher.

Take a look at our roundup of everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 to keep up with all the latest reveals.

During Summer Game Fest, the annual Xbox Games Showcase brought us some very cool reveals – including the long-awaited Spyro: A Realm Beyond.

The upcoming Spyro game from Activision and Toys for Bob is the first big mainline entry in nearly two decades, and it's just as brilliantly vibrant as its nostalgia-inducing predecessors. In the new trailer, we see everything from bright purples to glowing oranges, green grasses to blue skies – you name it. It feels like a childhood fever dream in the best way, and I have a feeling that the developers wanted it to. They certainly weren't shying away from colors, anyway.

In a new online post, the official Toys for Bob account puts it best: "The world needs more radically joyful, colorful games," asking fans if they agree. I absolutely would.

The devs' statement here lines up well with what they recently said in an interview posted on Xbox Wire, too, that A Realm Beyond is one of those much-needed games the world is calling for now, and that it'll be as whimsical as the old Spyro gems we know and love.

"We know first-hand that a big part of what makes a Spyro game really resonate is having a wide variety of colorful, whimsical spaces with activities, characters, and treasures that motivate you to explore every nook and cranny," studio head Paul Yan explained.

We do get a taste of these spaces in the trailer, and so far, and I'm personally impressed. It's like a modernized step back into the early 2000s, old PlayStation hues and all.

That's not to say that the new Spyro game won't be… well, new. Yan also admitted "the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure," which translates into some very exciting features – like free flight and such.

All in all, A Realm Beyond sounds like a blend of both familiar and fresh Spyro mechanics (and aesthetics, apparently). We'll get to witness it first-hand come its spring 2027 release date.

Fingers crossed that Spyro: A Realm Beyond delivers on all of its promising visuals, features, and more when it does finally launch. I'll be eagerly awaiting it, anyway.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Dataminers have apparently discovered an update to the Nintendo Switch Online retro games library, and it looks like Nintendo may be planning a spiritual successor to one of the Wii U's crown jewels.

Despite being a standard thing in the industry for over two decades now (yes the Xbox 360 was 21 years ago, you're old), Nintendo has never dabbled into achievements. Some games have featured an in-game version of them, sure, but there has never been a console-wide system for it, with Shigeru Miyamoto saying all the way back in 2009 that "I'm not a big fan of using the carrots to motivate people to play. I want people to play because they enjoy playing and want to play more."

However, it looks like Nintendo may now be dabbling in a similar system, but rather than being strictly achievements, it instead feels like a spiritual successor to the fantastic NES Remix series. BlueSky user Luigiblood reportedly found the details while datamining the NES, SNES, and Game Boy Nintendo Classics apps. Rather than give you achievements for completing specific tasks in-games, you'll apparently select a challenge which will then plunge you into a given retro game to complete it.

Meanwhile user Spectralstar69 posted a look at the first batch of apparent challenges, which are all themed around Donkey Kong games. These don't tell you what the actual challenges are, but the cards have descriptions, like "Catch the Key" for Donkey Kong on Game Boy, and "High-Flying Mine Cart!" on the original Donkey Kong Country. Even Donkey Kong Jr. Math is getting in on it, with a challenge called "DK Accounting!"

Presumably we could find out more about this new challenge system in the Nintendo Direct later today, and as someone who is a big fan of the NES Remix games, I'd be excited to see Nintendo get back to introducing fun challenges to its retro titles.

Zelda and Star Fox remakes are fine, but former Nintendo staff say it needs "more than nostalgia."

Now that we know there is a Nintendo Direct tomorrow, the rumor mill is abuzz with suggestions on what will be announced. The big expectation everyone has is the reveal of a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, but someone else might steal the show - Wario.

Even before this week's Direct was officially revealed, Nintendo leakers were already talking about what projects are due for announcements. On June 7, prevalent leaker noarmsandnolegs took to X (formerly Twitter) to post a gif of Wario and Link. This backs up previous leaks that indicated a new Wario Land title could be coming in 2027.

Noarmsandnolegs previously served as the main source on the Rayman Legends Retold and Spyro: A Realm Beyond leaks, both of which were later officially announced over the course of Summer Game Fest. Following their initial post, the leaker then made a more direct statement on the rumors, saying outright, "A new Wario game is coming. Wahahaha." They then elaborate, saying that they cannot confirm if it will be a new entry in the Wario Land series, though they point to the apparent uptick in Wario appearances lately. That includes Wario World on Nintendo Switch Online and a Wario Land track in Mario Kart World.

If it is not a new Wario Land game then the most likely announcement will be a new WarioWare title, assuming there's a Wario reveal coming at all. The last title in that series, WarioWare: Move It!, released in 2023. So it hasn't been that long in the grand scheme of things, even if I'd never say no to a new entry.

WarioWare: Move It is the Smooth Moves spiritual successor I've always wanted

Spyro: A Realm Beyond is the iconic purple dragon's first all-new game in 18 years, but the devs at Toys for Bob don't want to stop here, with studio head Paul Yan expressing hopes that "this is the first of many" to come.

Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+ at Summer Game Fest 2026, Yan says he's "proud of the team," who have been "paying attention and listening to the community."

He sees that A Realm Beyond could have fallen into two extremes: "If you stick too much to nostalgia, then you basically just rehash, and it's like, 'why did we do that?'" he suggests, saying that rehashing things would mean "there's no future that kind of gets out there."

Meanwhile, "on the other extreme, you innovate too much, and all of a sudden you don't even recognize what the character is and what the series is." With that in mind, Yan says, "that tension is so real" when it came to making A Realm Beyond.

After all, he continues, "our goal is that we want Spyro to live on for a long time. We want not just one new game, but many new games. We hope that this is the first of many. So we're going to have to take some risks. We're going to have to move into new territory, and our goal is to make sure that that evolution is always speaking to something that is authentic and reverential to building on the foundation of what is truly Spyro, and then we'll take some leaps." This will be "uncomfortable," he adds, "but we wanna go there."

It certainly sounds promising – the last all-new Spyro game launched in 2008, and while we had 2018's Reignited Trilogy (also made by Toys for Bob) to tide us over, Spyro fans have been ravenous for something fresh for years.

Thankfully, there's not too much longer to wait for Spyro: A Realm Beyond – it's set to launch in Spring 2027 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Switch 2, and hopefully we won't have another 18-year wait for the next one after that.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond lets everyone's favorite dragon fly freely, which is "such a significant addition" devs have "built a whole world around that promise."

Tonight's hotly anticipated Summer Game Fest event was the annual Xbox Games Showcase, and boy, did it bring us some cool reveals – including one of Spyro: A Realm Beyond, a title we've waited nearly two decades for.

The last proper Spyro entry landed a whopping 18 years ago with The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, but Activision and Toys for Bob are finally back with a new entry in the beloved series... one that sounds like it's shaping up to be the biggest we've ever seen – free-flying and all.

Speaking in a new interview with Xbox itself, Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan seems to tease as much, first admitting that A Realm Beyond is just what the nostalgia doctor ordered.

Admitting that it'll be just as colorful and whimsical as predecessors, he says, "In Spyro: A Realm Beyond, the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure."

This whole "sense of discovery" that the lead mentions here is made all the better by one stand-out fact: you can fly freely about the skies as Spyro in A Realm Beyond. Yes, freely... and that's a lot for both the developers and fans.

As Yan describes, "For now, I can tell you that our biggest ambition in Spyro: A Realm Beyond is to give the player the freedom and fantasy of dragon flight – to be able to take the skies at a moment's notice and make interesting and active decisions to flow through the spaces as you charge on the ground and now soar through the air."

In fact, "This is such a significant addition to the game" that "we've built a whole world around that promise." That's... exciting, to say the least. It almost feels like the jump that the Super Mario series saw in Odyssey – but Spyro. I am so here for that.

If you're looking forward to soaring the skies as everyone's favorite little purple dragon like I am, it'll be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S – and, of course, Xbox Game Pass, too.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Almost 18 full years since the last all-new Spyro the Dragon game, everyone's favorite purple dragon is back with Spyro: A Realm Beyond, launching early next year.

Announced during today's Xbox Games Showcase, Spyro: A Realm Beyond is an all-new Spyro adventure from Toys for Bob. While we got the Reignited Trilogy in 2018, the last totally new game we got was 2008's The Legend of Spyro: The Dawn of the Dragon, so to say it's been a while would be an understatement. You can check out the trailer below.

As for what we can expect from A Realm Beyond, the trailer's video description reveals that Spyro finds himself stranded (presumably, in a realm beyond), but soon finds himself taking on "a vicious invading force known as the Scavs." It's called "Spyro's boldest evolution yet," which sounds very promising.

Rumors of a new Spyro game have been circulating for some time now – in 2024, it was rumored that Toys for Bob had signed a deal with Microsoft, shortly after splitting away from Activision. It didn't take long for these rumors to be confirmed – a couple of months later, Toys for Bob announced that it was "partnering with Xbox to publish our next new game," which was "still very early in development" at the time.

The studio didn't confirm what game it was working on, though given that the announcement was accompanied by the Toys for Bob and Xbox logos on a purple background, many fans were hopeful that Spyro was set to return. Now then, here we are – A Realm Beyond is set to launch in spring 2027 on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Switch 2, and PC.

While you're here, be sure to take a look at our Xbox Games Showcase 2026 live coverage to keep up with all the other announcements from today's stream.

Cuphead is back. Nearly four years after the hand-drawn platformer released it's final expansion, The Delicious Last Course, developer Studio MDHR is back for more. During Summer Game Fest 2026 MDHR announced not one but two new projects.

The first project is a true successor to the original Cuphead. It will be hand-animated and, "take Cuphead and friends on a fresh, exciting adventure." That's according to a puppet news anchor that stars in the trailer MDHR showed off at Summer Game Fest. The project is still in early stages, so we didn't get a look at any gameplay, but the puppet news anchor promises the team will reveal more when the time is right.

The second announcement is still Cuphead...with a twist. Mighty Cuphead Adventure comes from a small team within the studio and is billed as something completely different. It is, "a love letter to the era that brought us into world of video games." A brief trailer shows off an 8-bit platformer that, while staring familiar faces, has an an entirely new visual style compared to the hand-drawn aesthetic of Cuphead. The brief trailer makes it clear Studio MDHR's hallmark platforming gameplay will remain intact.

Mighty Cuphead Adventure will be available on modern platforms but for true retro fans Studio MDHR has something special planned. In a a blog post, MDHR reveals that a physical cartridge for the Sega Master System will also be available for purchase. In the words of Studio MDHR, "This is not just a retro-style game: it’s a game built from the ground up with all the unique limitations of a 1980s video game studio."

"Cuphead ships in Japan with amazing art from a Final Fantasy icon, and fans are losing it"

Rayman Legends Retold devs say it's a mere coincidence that 13 years later, Rayman Legends Retold is launching around the same time as a new GTA and Assassin's Creed Black Flag.

It's 2013, Rayman Legends was released a few weeks before the new GTA game, and now it's 2026, and Rayman Legends Retold is about to release a few weeks before the new GTA game. But that's not all for Ubisoft's 2013 lineup, as – despite being one of the AAA companies that typically doesn't remake games all that much – the developer is also remaking Assassin's Creed Black Flag. But the fact that all of these games released in 2013 are returning again is a mere coincidence.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loïc Gounon explained, "I think it's a - I would not say random - but I think it's a bit of an accident that [both] remakes collided a bit the same year." However, while Assassin's Creed "also has new games in development that have been teased or announced" for Rayman, it's a bit of a different story, as "our context, as we explained, is more relaunching the brand."

Gounon continues, "I think what's funny in terms of story is actually that Black Flag and Legends released the same year [2013], so that's another accident." He then acknowledges that the situation is "A bit like GTA. We released the same month as GTA 5, 13 years ago, and now we release nearly the same month as GTA 6."

Thankfully, Rayman Legends is releasing much further out than GTA this time, so hopefully it won't be quite as big of a sales flop this time around, especially since it sounds like Retold's success is how we get a new 3D Rayman game.

A Rayman 1 remake is basically "mission impossible" for Ubisoft, Legends Retold producer says.

One Rayman lead at Ubisoft says that a new 3D Rayman is hopefully going to happen eventually, although it's not confirmed to be the next game in the series.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loïc Gounon explains that when Rayman Origins released, there was a trend of "smaller games, more agile 2D, multiplayer" with the likes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

"I think what we're seeing now with Astro Bot, with new 3D platformers, there is a rebirth of the golden age of PS2-ish platformers," he explains, adding: "If you look back at the franchise, it's basically Rayman 2, Rayman 3 that were in that era.

"We think it might be the time to come back with more adventurous 3D Rayman games," Gounon continues. "We are starting with that project [Rayman Legends Retold], that's what we are aiming for, in a way, and what we want for Rayman, and we think it's a good match, both for the players and the market."

When asked if the thing the team sees next for Rayman is a return to the fully 3D style found in earlier games, Gounon says, "that's the plan! That will be the plan if everything goes well!" He adds, "We are setting up a new team. We're resetting the foundation for the franchise. That's why also being – even though we are a bit more than a remake – being partially a remake, there are some solid grounds where we felt it was a good way to bring back the franchise."

So yes, Rayman Legends is a confusing choice for a game to remake, but as a means to bring back the series for a true 3D Rayman 4 – that we've been waiting for since the mid 2000's when the real Rayman 4 (which Gounon also worked on) became Rayman Raving Rabbids – I'm more than happy to support it.

A Rayman 1 remake is basically "mission impossible" for Ubisoft, Legends Retold producer says.

Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loic Gounon has explained why Legends is the game getting remade instead of the original Rayman.

So, Rayman Legends Retold has been announced, and naturally, I'm sure everyone is wondering 'why is Ubisoft remaking the last game in the series that is available on every platform and still very much holds up?'

"Obviously it's a question we've had in most of the interviews," Gounon explains at a recent preview event attended by GamesRadar+, noting that "it's sort of the richest one in a way." He says that Legends has "all of Rayman," with the likes of Globox, the Teensies, Murfy, and Barbara joining the adventure, and that if Ubisoft "wanted to go [to the] next [game], we need to have all of Rayman."

The game most in need of a remake is arguably Rayman, the PS1 classic which had a re-release earlier this year with Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition, "I think it's been tried," Gounon explains. He adds, "I think it's a game that's really difficult to remake, and I think, in a way, the answer to remaking Rayman 1 is Rayman Origins, and we went through those arguments internally."

Gounon adds, "Rayman Origins is sort of a reboot of Rayman 1. There are some of the characters, some of the places." In original Rayman, he says, it's "super slow" and "very old school game design," but "if you start changing that, the metrics, the sense of speed, it's another game. It's Origins"

He continues, "I would call it near a mission impossible to remake Rayman 1, honestly. That's why, when we decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary, we felt that keeping Rayman 1 as intact as it was, going for a bit more of a documentary approach, how the franchise was born, was a better angle."

Of course, that doesn't rule out remakes for Rayman 2 or 3, so keep the hopium going.

Rayman Legends may be one of the best games of 2013, and if its remake is as good as that, we'll be looking at one of the best new games of 2026 too.

It's a testament to how rock solid the Rayman platformers have become that, within minutes of going hands-on with Rayman Legends Retold, I'm dashing, twirling, leaping as I bop enemy heads and crash through cages to free my friends like it's 2013 all over again. Yet, still the most recent Rayman adventure (and available on modern platforms), it feels odd that such a lavish remake has its sights set on recent history. Though it's nice to feel the muscle memory kick in playing Rayman Legends Retold, that's also because my hands-on is, for the most part, playing the same levels I already played a decade ago.

Retold is such a one-to-one remake that it's even built on the original's exact level design data. It's a bold move because Rayman Legends as it exists today is still fantastic. Since playing Retold, I've revisited the original (and predecessor Rayman Origins), and had just as much fun as I did with this newer model. More content has been added on top, but the bulk of Retold is extremely faithful. The biggest and most obvious change: a shift from the original's phenomenal 2D graphics to 3D, though models and environments retain plenty of charm and a painterly feel.

A world rebuilt

Backgrounds to the stages that Rayman and up to three other co-op friends can run through, have been loaded with new detail. One swamp-based level that had Rayman punching through toad enemies with water and plants stretching behind him, is now coated with toad culture – their huts, statues, and walkways winding in and out of the screen. Every level across every biome is now abuzz with activity as a mysterious corruption spreads and invades.

The shift to 3D means that the side-to-side plane can now bend and shift, curving Rayman's route through areas while retaining one-to-one geometry. One developer at Ubisoft Montpellier even shows me playing through this toad stage with one controller, moving the character in Rayman Legends Retold and the original game in sync. In 3D, the camera itself becomes a powerful level design tool, tilting to emphasise secret areas, or looking up as Rayman spins his helicopter hair to ascend, highlighting hazards and points of interest earlier than you can see them in the original game.

Still, for as good as Retold looks, there are moments as I watch numerous side by side demonstrations where I'm simply reminded of how good the original game still is. The game's new key art, for one, looks a bit dull when compared to the extreme stylization of the original. While Retold's in-game animation looks great, it lacks some of the clarity and definition of the original. Rayman might punch forward and throw up the double-peace 'V' sign to the screen in both, but in a space teeming with visual noise it has less impact, the enthusiasm slightly muted. Likewise, while the visual balance is still being tweaked, I sometimes find the dense, higher fidelity backgrounds can make the platforms harder to read. Minor gripes, sure, but when remaking the most recent game in the series that's also still readily available, these stand out.

Where Rayman Legends Retold adapts, it's so exact that it doesn't surprise. Even Murfy returns in some stages, an obvious holdover from the game's original Wii U exclusivity that allows you to cut ropes to lower platforms, stun enemies, or rotate platforms. As with previous non-touchscreen ports, he auto-gravitates towards areas of interactivity to be activated with a button press.

As with those ports, it can still sometimes feel a bit iffy. In areas dense with interactables when you're jumping at high-speeds, Murfy doesn't always hover over quite what you need, leading to some fumbled leaps over pits and a prompt fall to my death. It's always been a mechanic in Rayman Legends I've been cooler on, in part because it feels like a compromise to adapt a mechanic designed for the Wii U GamePad so specifically. I'm a bit surprised that even these sections are so one-to-one, as it feels like a prime area that could use a bigger rethink.

But, Retold does bring new features. For instance, the original's celebrated six musical levels – which have you platforming to a beat while diegetically the world around you breaks into what I can only describe as kazoo-disco covers – are joined by four more, though I'm forbidden from sharing details about them. Here the game promises to play more than usual with adding depth to the 2D platforming plane, one section having Rayman zipline from an almost over-the-shoulder angle – though you still very much control him in two-dimensions.

Each world – containing its own sequence of themed levels – was fairly abstracted in the original Rayman Legends as you hopped through paintings. In Retold, you still 2D platform between each level entrance, but now through a hub area that's actually set-dressed to be within each world. New stages connect each biome, having Rayman and friends ride dragons through arcadey shooter levels as chaos depends, teeing up an inevitable boss fight (clashes that, themselves, I wasn't able to play).

Playing from behind, the dragon flies into the screen, but plenty of camera shifts make this feel dynamic – one portion even turns it onto its side to feel properly retro as a gigantic frog in armour hurls castle debris at me from the background, and frogs with rocket launchers alternate taking shots at me while themselves being buffeted by a whirlwind.

Mode shifts like this can be a gamble. I didn't much care for the dragon sequences in Doom The Dark Ages, or the random shmup level in Earthworm Jim 2 (where else can you read those two games being compared, huh?). But, I really dig the first two dragon levels I play here, which feels like a smart evolution of the Rayman's hectic mosquito riding stages from Rayman Origins (and the very first game). On dragon back, you've no health bar per se, but one of the teensies you're trying to rescue will drop off with each hit you take. They can be tough to master if you're aiming to save every teensy possible, but are fun spectacles to blast through that aren't too punishing either.

These sections are part of an overall desire to make Rayman's world a bit more cohesive (or, as cohesive as a dream world can be, I'm told). Fully voice acted cutscenes have been thrown into the mix as well, bringing back classic voice talent like David Gasman as Rayman, featuring a brand new script and story. Rayman Legends Retold is still a light touch, family friend yarn, but one that aims to be more of a piece with the realized world as presented in the likes of Rayman 2 and Rayman 3.

When it Rays, it pours

I'm told constantly throughout my time at Ubisoft Montpellier that this remake is about "rebuilding Rayman's foundations", no one-off road but an attempt to pave the way to Rayman's future. Speaking with brand producer Loic Gounon, he brings up Rayman's history of 3D platformers as well as genre peers like Jak & Daxter from the PS2 generation through to the likes of Astro Bot on PS5. I have to ask if that means this 2.5D platformer remake is meant to lead towards a new fully 3D future for Rayman, and he gives me one of the most straightforward and candid answers about the future of a series I've ever received: "Yes, that's the plan!" Beyond Retold, "we think it might be the time to come back with, you know, let's say more adventurous 3D Rayman games," he says.

The new story also features an enigmatic villain, which prompts a full, final sixth world set in the Land of the Livid Dead. I'm only able to play one level set here, still a work-in-progress, but its difficulty is nicely dialed up to feel like a bit of a test (though not a patch on some optional challenge levels), and gives me time to play with Rayman's light punch power – a new ability for Retold that's derived from some of the character's classic skills. Hurling his glowing fist, Rayman can clear areas of corruption in the environment, required to make some enemies vulnerable to a pummelling, but also to stretch out the likes of vines to create temporary platforms. The additional layer of interaction adds a nice bit of extra complexity, feeling a bit like Murfy's mechanics but in a way that's more directly under player control.

Historically, Ubisoft hasn't done many remakes of its games. This year, it's releasing two with Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced joining Rayman Legends Retold. Gounon laughs as he also points out both of the original games launched in 2013, but that it's "a bit of an accident" that both projects have coincidentally arrived at the same time. Assassin's Creed, he points out, already has future projects in development. Rayman Legends Retold "is more about relaunching the brand, which is very different".

In some ways, pinning the future of Rayman on a game many players and developers already like makes sense. It allows the development team, which Gounon tells me is relatively small, to get comfortable with its Snowdrop Engine (which still runs a version of UbiArt Framework within it), a new workflow, and to expand on the "richest" game in the Rayman series in terms of characters, game design, and worldbuilding. But, I can't help but be anxious. It's staking the future of the series on a game where, for the most part, I've already been there and done that. If, somehow, you skipped Rayman Legends, then Rayman Legends Retold is a luxurious remake of one of the best to do it. But, even with its new levels, it's still Rayman Legends – my muscle memory doesn't lie.

Rayman Legends Retold is releasing October 1, 2026 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 for $39.99.

Weigh anchor and sail into our Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Big Preview for our deep dive hands-on and developer discussion around Ubisoft's other big remake.

Ubisoft has confirmed the long-rumored Rayman Legends remake at today's PlayStation State of Play, with Rayman Legends Retold set to launch on October 1, 2026.

Despite being the last game in the series to release – way back in 2013 – Rayman Legends is the game Ubisoft has decided to remake for the series' grand return. Rayman Legends Retold is Rayman Legends, but with a fresh coat of paint – namely, ditching the 2D hand-drawn aesthetic for a 3D makeover. However, despite the 3D characters, the game is playing in 2D just like the original, but it's not a straight remake, as Ubisoft is seemingly adding new levels to the game where you ride a dragon in 3D Star Fox-like levels.

Also showcased was the voice acting, which seemingly features the return of Rayman's long-time voice actor David Gasman (who first played the character in Rayman 2). The rest of the crew is also voiced, but I wasn't able to place them – although Globox really sounds like Patrick Star from SpongeBob SquarePants. And as is tradition, Barbara has a Scottish accent that really doesn't sound like it was done by a Scottish person.

The game is set to launch on October 1, 2026. Obviously, being a PlayStation State of Play, only a PS5 version was confirmed, but known leaker Billbil-Kun revealed Switch 2 box art for the game earlier today (and yes, it's a Game-Key Card), and claims it'll be launching for 40$. They also claim pre-ordering it will grant access to Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition, which wasn't shown in the showcase.

Rayman Legends may be one of the best games of 2013, and if it's remake is as good as that we'll be looking at one of the best new games of 2026 too

A remaster of Rayman Origins was listed and then hastily delisted on the Xbox Store with a placeholder price of $2,000 - or $1,999, to be exact - and while no game is worth dropping two grand on, the Ubisoft classic is probably as close as it gets.

Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition briefly popped up on the Xbox Series X|S storefront last night, though the link has since been scrubbed of any evidence. The storefront description also gave us a little bit of an insight into what Ubisoft might be changing in its platformer, from 4k resolutions to unnamed quality-of-life features.

Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition listed on Xbox Store for Xbox Series X|S. Placeholder $1,999.99 price. Screenshots and info: www.xbox.com/en-US/games/...-4K-60 FPS-Modern enhancements including QoL Features

— @wario64.bsky.social (@wario64.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-05-30T11:48:56.975Z

Ubisoft shoved the limbless protagonist into a years-long limbo after putting out two of the best side-scrollers ever made in Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. That was until this year's Rayman: 30th Anniversary Edition, a compilation of the series' older games.

Around launch, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the collection was only the beginning of the franchise's comeback: "Rayman is a landmark franchise for Ubisoft and holds a special place in my heart because it played such a key role in Ubisoft's early evolution." Though, we haven't heard of anything new since then, at least not officially.

Job postings this year were hiring devs for a "prestigious AAA title for the Rayman brand", with a series of other leaks also now floating about the interwebs. While this Rayman Origins remaster is still unofficial, all signs point to the goofy guy returning in a bigger way sometime down the line.

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with every major exciting release with our new games of 2026 guide.

Mike Fischer, former Sega of America vice president of entertainment marketing, recalls working with Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka, and not very fondly.

Fischer worked for Sega in the early 90s before returning to the company in the early 2000s, and speaking to Sega 16, he explains, "It was wonderful to go back and reconnect with those people. It was less pleasant to deal with Naka-san." He recalls speaking about trends in the western market going towards mature games, with the soon-to-be-developed Yakuza playing into this nicely. But Fischer recalls, "Naka just went fucking ballistic on me, yelling at me, saying I wanted to make porno games."

He also recalled the development of Sonic Team's Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, saying, "He wanted to call it Giant Eggs, and we’re like, 'Well, to lay a big egg in the U.S. just means a failure.'" Someone on the team suggested calling it "'Billy Hatcher' because it’s a hatching game with a cute character. The main character is the boy, not the egg." But, "Naka-san hated it. We called it Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, which he still hated."

Fischer then recalls another tale about the naming of the now-mostly-forgotten GameCube title. He notes, "I promise you, I am not making up this story," and says, "He goes, 'Well, I know another name for the boy wearing a rooster suit. Another name for [a] rooster is cock. Can we call the game Giant Cock in English?'"

And despite the hilarity of suggesting that, Fischer doesn't have the best memories of Sonic's co-creator, saying, "He is literally the most miserable person I have ever worked with in games or anything else in my life, just a horrible human being, and you can quote me on that," while also making reference to his prison sentence for insider trading charges in 2022.

However, Fischer has far better things to say about Sonic's other co-creator, Naoto Ōshima, saying "Ōshima-san is one of the most wonderful, kindhearted people you’ll ever meet in your life," while citing distaste at Naka speaking in an interview about why he decided to make Sonic blue – something Ōshima, as the character artist, was responsible for.

He also says that Naka "was so malignant in trying to rewrite history" and that he "refused to sit in the same row as Ōshima-san because he accused Ōshima-san of trying to steal his credit" at the Xbox One debut event. However, the duo would eventually collaborate again on 2021's Balan Wonderworld for the first time since Sonic Adventure, so presumably they had patched things up by then.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Former Sega of America vice president of entertainment marketing Mike Fischer says he's heard a Sonic CD remake is in the works

In an interview with Sega 16, Fischer speaks at length about his time at Sega, including being around for the launch of the Sega CD, shifting the company from a first to third-party publisher after the fall of the Dreamcast, as well as his time at Namco between his two tenures at Sega. However, right at the end of the interview, he drops a nugget like it's nothing, saying: "I've heard that they're remaking Sonic CD, which would be wonderful. That was my favorite Sonic game."

Sega doesn't have anything in store for Sonic at the moment, at least, nothing that's been publicly announced (there are rumors about a Sonic Frontiers definitive edition release), and while most assume that this year's game will be a sequel to Frontiers – or just the next mainline game in general – the idea of a Sonic CD remake has certainly come out of nowhere.

While Sonic CD was remastered as part of Sonic Origins a few years ago, the timing for something with the classic Sega CD game would make sense, as the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4 movie is set to adapt it. And, as the best Sonic game in 2D (in my eyes, I know Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles and Mania are the fan consensus), I'd be down to see it adapted in a new way, just as long as they keep that all-timer soundtrack – the Japan and Europe version, before you ask.

Of course, Fischer doesn't work at Sega currently, and while it wouldn't be unusual for him to hear about the current goings on at the company, there's always the chance that this is a miscommunication or misunderstanding, so don't get yourself too hyped until we see evidence of it existing.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Donkey Kong 64 has a mixed reputation these days, thanks to its often bloated design and downright dizzying array of collectables. But while there were certainly some people who were complaining about those things back in the day, it didn't stop Donkey Kong 64 from becoming the best-selling game of 1999 on any platform, dethroning even the millennial monster of Pokemon Red and Blue.

"According to Circana's Retail Tracking Service, Donkey Kong 64 was the #1 best-selling video game of 1999 in the US market in dollars, besting Pokémon Red/Blue," according to Mat Piscatella on Bluesky. The OG Pokemon games had launched a year earlier in the US, but the nation was still fully in the hold of Pokemania in 1999 – the notion of any game dethroning Red and Blue at the time is absolutely wild.

Other 1999 releases that Donkey Kong 64 beat include Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Gran Turismo 2, Resident Evil 3, Tomb Raider 3, Driver, Super Smash Bros., and any Dreamcast launch game. Final Fantasy 8 also failed to beat the DK crew, though, again, these numbers are just about US sales – the story would almost certainly be different if you took Japan into account.

These days, games tend to accrue the bulk of their sales in the days and weeks following launch, but that often wasn't the case in the '90s. In fact, Donkey Kong 64 is itself something of an outlier, since it topped the full-year chart despite launching in late November and having just a few weeks worth of sales counted. "Games sold at a different cadence in the late 90s than they do today," as Piscatella puts it.

"US lifetime sales of the N64 version exceeded 2.3M units and $130M," Piscatella adds. That makes Donkey Kong 64 the ninth best-selling US N64 game of all time, and helpfully, he's also provided a full list of the top ten.

• Super Mario 64
• GoldenEye 007
• Mario Kart 64
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Super Smash Bros.
• Pokemon Stadium
• Diddy Kong Racing
• Star Fox 64
• Donkey Kong 64
• Pokemon Snap

That's actually a pretty excellent list of games – clearly us N64 kids had excellent taste. It is a bit surprising to see Donkey Kong 64 in the top 10 above the likes of Banjo-Kazooie, which is by pretty much all accounts Rare's far better N64 platformer.

That said, despite the memes, I'm not going to dunk on anyone with nostalgia for Donkey Kong 64, because I'm right there with ya. I was sent that infamous Hot Newz 64 tape, instantly fell for the hype, and spent months convincing my parents that I needed a new console and a copy of Donkey Kong 64 – which, coincidentally, launched right around my birthday.

These days, I absolutely understand why the difficulty spikes, the labyrinthine levels, and all those damned bananas have put people off of Donkey Kong 64, but I loved it at the time and I still have a soft spot for it now. I'm a little frightened to see what the discourse is going to look like when Donkey Kong 64 hits Nintendo Switch Online, but at least we'll be looking at the game with fresh eyes rather than 27 years of pent up nostalgia (or animosity).

Donkey Kong 64 did not make our list of the best N64 games of all time.

Donkey Kong 64 is finally being added to Nintendo Switch Online, so now you can experience his first ever 3D platformer on a handheld.

Despite being intrinsically linked to the great ape, Rare actually didn't spend that much time with Donkey Kong. Between 1994 and 1999, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy rebooted the whole franchise, the Donkey Kong Land games adapted those to Game Boy, and then finally the studio took what it learned with Banjo-Kazooie to make a 3D platformer (also Diddy Kong Racing, too, I didn't forget). And while the Country games have been on Nintendo Switch Online since the service launched in 2021, Donkey Kong 64 has been one of the biggest omissions from the N64 library.

And out of nowhere, Nintendo confirmed that yes, finally, Rare's 1999 platformer will be coming to Nintendo Switch Online's N64 library on June 4, 2026 – almost exactly one year after the Switch 2 launched. And now you can finally experience Donkey Kong 64 with save states and a rewind feature, which should hopefully cut down on how unfathomably tedious of a game it can be.

While it has its fans for sure, Donkey Kong 64 took Rare's collectathon style from Banjo-Kazooie to the absolute extremes, with each level having a ton of collectibles to grab and five sets of them to correspond to each playable character. And for those playable characters, you have to backtrack to a barrel within the level to manually switch them – and it's no surprise that one of the most popular mods for it is the ability to switch on the fly, which will obviously not be included in this version.

To this very day, the game holds a Guinness World Record for most collectible items in a platformer game; it's an absolute beast. And while Donkey Kong Bananza is the better game for a multitude of different reasons, I'd still recommend trying this one out to take in the sheer amount of it. Plus, it gave us the DK Rap, so it can't all be bad.

Donkey Kong Bananza devs admit the blatantly OP elephant transformation "probably went too far," but "it's fun" and "that's what matters most."

Bubsy 4D has quickly become one of my favorite platforming games in recent years and, yep, there are no bobcat claws at my throat making me say that. I've gone from rudely maligning the overly chatty '90s mascot to becoming a genuine fan. That time has passed in-universe too, meaning that Bubsy the Bobcat has become a down-on-his luck, schlubby uncle who has to exhaustingly pounce back into action to recover the golden fleeces from enemy robot sheep. Finally, I can see myself in a platforming hero.

Developed by excellent platformer studio Fabraz, the only detractor here is that Bubsy 4D released so close to its much more ambitious and fully-featured Demon Tides (which I called "a high watermark in my 3D platformer pantheon" in my Demon Tides review). Yet, there are enough differences to make playing both worth it. Jumping through linear levels chosen from a menu screen means that Bubsy 4D is a more straightforward affair, as is his suite of platforming moves (Demon Tides is more about customization).

Only boasting three worlds with five levels each, this is a snappy adventure that matches its budget price, but the focused approach also makes replaying to scoop up collectibles or try for new time trial records appealing. I have to admit I'd love to get my paws on more levels – but what's here feels like a perfectly sized bit of platforming catnip.

Fur your paws only

Bubsy 4D makes controlling the bobcat star much slicker than the Bubsy 3D days, though that's admittedly an extremely low bar. In fact, controlling Bubsy here makes for some of the best platformer jumping I've played in a long-time, mixing together some of the genre's classic abilities with unique abilities that keep it feline fresh.

Early on, you might find Bubsy a bit jerky, but the more I've played, the more I've come to appreciate his twitchiness. It suits him as a bobcat, but it also means I really feel in control of how he moves. Running through each level with the goal of reaching its glowing golden yarn balls – definitely not golden stars, which makes for some of Bubsy's reams of pop culture observations gleefully delivered by actor Sean Chiplock – you've got to make the usual death-defying leaps through 3D obstacle courses. Hold the button and Bubsy will jump higher, can extend those hops with a Yoshi-like flutter and, of course, can tip his furry quiff to Mario for a chained three-hop combo to sneak in a little extra height.

Speed can be adjusted by pouncing while on the ground, swapping Bubsy's two-footed movement for four-legs as he breaks out into a run like a true cat (and, yes, checkpoints are, of course, litterboxes). Bubsy's abilities get more creative while in mid-air. Suspended, he can switch his leap into a glide or a pounce. The latter acts like a bonus jump that flings him quite a horizontal distance, and doesn't stop once he hits a wall – this kitty's got claws and will clamber up vertical walls for extra height, helping out with near-misses, but also neatly combining big leaps with wall-jumping in a way that makes transitioning into upward movement feel natural.

The way you can chain all of Bubsy's moves together reminds me of the hat-flinging in Super Mario Odyssey. While in the air, you can choose to use all of Bubsy's moves once in any order, weaving together different combinations to suit a variety of situations, often trading control for distance, or favoring vertical or horizontal movement. Bubsy's glide won't get you that far, but will greatly reduce his fall speed to nail landing on a narrow space, for instance. Or, pounce on a target mid-air, and Bubsy's abilities reset, allowing you to chain together big jump combos.

Just like the plumber's recent adventure, Fabraz leaves plenty of room for player creativity to move through and even sometimes around platforming gauntlets. Successfully mastering Bubsy's movement to shave down my time in each level feels rewarding, even if sometimes my own hubris can be my undoing as I try to do one big jump into several small ones.

More moves are doled out as you complete optional platforming challenges in each level to unlock blueprints. These can be added into Bubsy's movement chains to extend jumps even further, from a running jump that can kick off leaps with plenty of distance, to a spinning-top jump that can provide excellent starting verticality – especially useful in some low-gravity situations. These all compliment his moveset well without feeling like they change anything too much, more a slow way to add a smidge of extra complication that doesn't touch on Demon Tides' often completely rule-changing powers, but that helps Bubsy 4D feel more focused.

I'm less keen on Bubsy's furball power that blows him up into a sphere capable of boosting at high-speeds. Within the stage design, this is used for some half-pipe or highway-like bits that connect sections of a stage, or to boost down Mario-like pipes. You can swap between these forms at will, for instance using it to boost jump before swapping back into conventional jumping, but I find weaving this in a bit less elegantly than swapping between his other moves. A bouncing wall jump has more utility, but it can often feel like furball sections are just padding out the size of an area a bit.

The quest to defeat the baabots and recover Bubsy's yarn has him moving from planet to planet, all three arbitrarily themed in the classic '90s manner: there's a craft world, a pens-and-scissors stationary world, and a trash world that gets more machine-like as you progress. Similar to the recently released Rayman, classic Bubsy also featured some oddly abstract stage themes (both have an unreasonably hard music world) – and you know Bubsy 4D is tongue-in-cheek about evolving that formula here.

It's really this tone that pulls the whole of Bubsy 4D together. It's a charming adventure that makes me chuckle with how knowingly it treats the strangeness of reviving Bubsy of all things, and is able to balance poking fun at the character's infamous past with genuine affection for both those adventures, and the era of mascot platforming in general.

It certainly helps, though, that the platforming itself feels this good. I've really come to love expressive platformers where being able to use skill to break apart some of the challenges is part of the fun. While I'd like a bit more meat on the Bubsy 4D treat stick, one task is certainly accomplished with aplomb: I'm left wanting more Bubsy. That's something I never thought I'd be typing.

Bubsy 4D is out now on Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo Switch.

Looking for a throwback? Check out our best SNES games list!

When I boot up Yoshi and the Mysterious Book for the first time, I fully expect to step into another charming platformer from Nintendo. Now, after 10 hours of playtime, I can say it does live up to that expectation, but what comes as a very welcome surprise is just how refreshingly adventurous the green dinosaur's debut on Switch 2 feels – and that's thanks to the way every level is entirely driven by your own experimentation and discovery.

Breaking away from the more traditional, albeit creative, platforming fare of Yoshi's Crafted World, Mysterious Book invites me to explore the pages of a talking tome called Mr E (who rocks an impressive mustache and monocle). Broken up into chapters that are home to curious creatures, hovering over a critter with a magnifying glass opens up a level – each essentially serves as a habitat for one of the book's funny little guys. With their unique abilities for me to discover, I then have to puzzle out how to use their skills and behaviors to clear each stage.

With some set actions I can perform as Yoshi, it becomes a rewarding game of trial and error as I figure out how I can use any given creature. The variety of mysterious inhabitants also means no one level ever feels the same, and every time I step into Mr E's pages, I have no idea what discoveries I'll make, or what I have to do to complete the level. But therein lies the magic of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book: it's all about the playful way it encourages you to mess about and see what can happen when you do.

Popping into pages

When you first meet Mr E, you find out his real name is actually Mister Encyclopedia, and the mysterious creatures I'm tasked with investigating are the subject of his pages. After falling from the sky onto Yoshi's Island (the sight of which instantly fills me with nostalgia), he seems to have lost his knowledge of those that inhabit his chapters. So, with nothing else for it, Mr E asks the Yoshis on the island to step into his pages and learn about every critter so he can catalog them in true encyclopedic fashion.

With the option to play as Yoshi in a variety of colors (another Yoshi's Island throwback I appreciate), diving into the pages transforms the intrepid dinosaur adventurer into a delightful storybook style, as though he at once belongs within the book. With colorful level designs that also capture this aesthetic, there's almost a stop-motion quality to some of the movements that adds to the charm. Mysterious Book really does look wonderful on the Switch 2, popping off the screen just as the creatures appear to leap from Mr E's pages.

The first few levels really give you a feel for the overall experience, which is all about trying things out with Yoshi's set of moves. There's nothing too surprising in this department if you've ever played a Yoshi game before, with the green steed being able to tail flick whatever's nearby, use his tongue to gobble things up and turn them into projectile eggs, and jump flutter through the air. While this is all standard stuff, it's really the creatures that elevate Yoshi and what he can actually do on a level.

From tossing a creature on his back to holding them in his mouth to make use of their abilities, Yoshi can also directly jump on certain creatures to ride them like a mount and direct their movements. There's all kinds of surprising ways the creatures can help you navigate and overcome obstacles, which makes Yoshi's normal set of skills more playful and entertaining.

The controls, for the most part, work well, but it did take me a spell to get into the groove of it. It's so easy to accidentally fling a creature off your back when you mean to jump, and the ground slam ability, which smacks you down Mario-style, is tied to a flick of the analog stick, which I did find finicky to use as I wanted to during certain levels.

Adding shifting powers on top of Yoshi's regular abilities sometimes lacks the delightful simplicity the similarly power-absorbing Kirby often manages. I do, however, appreciate that the Mysterious Book includes controller settings which let you choose from a few different layouts, so there's a bit of room to find a set-up that works for you.

Creature collector

My first instinct every time I meet a new creature is to give them a taste. Yes, sometimes it means I simply learn their flavor profile (which honestly makes me smile every time) – or if I can gobble them up and transform them into eggs to lob at targets – but my taste testing routine can pay off in unexpected ways.

One time, for example, I give a surreptitious lick to a new wiggly creature in the ground during a later chapter. The appendage on its head latches onto my tongue like a rope, allowing me to pull its long form and stretch it over long distances. What I can do with this newfound discovery takes further investigation as I move it this way and that, but this is the great joy of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book: your experimentation is always rewarded in some way. It constantly pushes me to try out new things and think outside the box… or, well, book.

What if I use this creature's water on that mud? What would happen if I fling this sharp beaked insect-thing at that tree trunk over there? Your tests may not always pay off in the way you expect, but I've lost count of the number of instances that had me slapping my knees with joy because a creature either reacted to my actions in some way I didn't see coming, or I could use them in humorous or playful ways.

Every time you make a discovery – no matter how small – in any given level, it will get recorded by Mr E. Not only does this earn you stars that you need to gather in order to unlock later chapters, but it also logs them in a storybook sketch style, which gives me little bursts of serotonin. In a way, it's like seeing trophies mapped out for all the times you experimented and found out something a creature can do within its habitat.

Dinosaur discoveries

The main challenge of the Mysterious Book lies in me being able to figure out how to both overcome obstacles with the creatures, but also uncover and perform a particular discovery that then allows me to catalog them and add them to Mr E's index. Since making this discovery hinges on your exploration and experimentation, it can be quite head scratching at times to figure out what you need to do.

Certain levels can definitely be more challenging than others in this respect, causing some frustration when I can't figure out what's left to try. You can ask Mr E for suggestions, but he often states the obvious without giving you proper clues. There's also a hint system where you can spend any coins you've gathered on if you're really stuck, but it doesn't always make it obvious. I can imagine younger players finding it quite tricky in places, with some smaller (but often pretty breezy) boss fight scenarios at the close of chapters, too.

How satisfying the controls work also tend to be tied to the nature of a creature. Naturally, with so many different kinds of critters to investigate, some are more enjoyable than others, and you'll likely have your own personal highlights. I've got plenty of standouts of my own, including a bubblegum-like creature that immediately brought to mind my favorite pink puffball, Kirby.

With the option to name each and every one of the creatures you discover, I love the way this can make it feel more personal to you – that bubblegum friend is now called Korby forever more. You might recognize some of the creatures if you're a longtime Yoshi fan, too, and if you don't want to name them, Mr E will drop name ideas of his own (many of which are just downright charming and even sometimes familiar).

Yoshi isn't the only one delving into Mr E's pages to investigate these curious creatures, though. Bowser Jr and Kamek are flying through them to try and make a discovery of their own. While I can't go into what that discovery is, I do find myself wanting more from the game's overall narrative. With discovery shaping the experience, the story definitely takes second fiddle to the mysterious creatures in the book. The experimentation you're encouraged to do does lead to some delightful surprises, though, and the creatures themselves bring about some standout moments that do go some way to making up for it.

Like so many who grew up playing Nintendo, I've always had a special affinity for the little green dinosaur. From the days of Yoshi's Island on the SNES, right up until Yoshi's Crafted World, the adorable steed has had his share of memorable adventures. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is certainly a wonderful and more than welcome addition to his lineup, but with the likes of Super Mario Odyssey taking the famous plumber to new heights, and even DK's recent debut on the Switch 2 – which, in the words of our Donkey Kong Banzana review, is "one of the best inventions Nintendo has had for years" – I'm still hoping for the day we see Yoshi get even more ambitious.

Even so, I have to give a lot of kudos to the way Yoshi and the Mysterious Book breaks away from the more traditional platforming fare to deliver a creative experience that hinges exploration and discovery. Packed with delightful surprises, a little helping of Yoshi's Island nostalgia, and great level variety for good measure, Yoshi's latest adventure is worth diving into on Switch 2 if you've missed the dinosaur as much as I have.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book was reviewed on Switch 2 with a code provided by the publisher.

Look ahead to exciting future releases in our roundup of upcoming Switch 2 games.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 has officially wrapped filming with blue blur speed, and it's apparently the best movie in the game-to-film franchise so far.

Returning series director Jeff Fowler yesterday tweeted a picture of himself in the director's chair, grinning alongside a menacing Metal Sonic that does not want to be there. "And that's a wrap on SonicMovie4," he writes in the post down below. "On behalf of this amazing cast/crew, we have filmed the BEST Sonic Movie yet and can't wait to share."

Filming began back in March, a short two months ago, when we got our first look at Amy Rose's iconic hammer. Both Metal Sonic and Amy Rose {Kristen Bell) are set to play major parts in the upcoming movie after they were teased in mid-credits scenes at the end of Sonic 3.

Metal Sonic was first introduced as a recurring antagonist in 1993's Sonic the Hedgehog CD - where he also kidnaps Amy Rose - created by big bad Dr. Eggman as a cutting-edge machine capable of rivalling his nemesis' iconic speed.

The sequel's first teaser already gave us a look at Jim Carrey's return to the role of Dr. Eggman, despite the character's death at the end of Sonic 3, so everything's in place for the movie to follow Metal Sonic's origin story, at least loosely.

Paramount has yet to release an official synopsis for the fourquel, but Sonic 3 passed the baton on pretty neatly for Sonic 4 to go zooming. Not only did Team Sonic remain victorious, a post-credits scene teased that Shadow is alive and well, actually, so expect the whole gang to be here (minus, I don't know, Silver?)

Sonic 4 races to theatres on March 19, 2027.

For more, check out our picks of the best video game movies of all time.

You may or may not be aware a new Sonic game came out last year. Sonic Rumble Party is a free, Fall Guys-esque experience, and you'd be forgiven for having missed it since the reception wasn't great. The returns haven't been, either, and Sega's rolling back its free-to-play plans in lieu of this and other releases underperforming.

The company says as much in the financial report for the fiscal year 2026. According to the presentation, "new F2P titles struggled in FY2026/3" – specifically, Sonic Rumble Party had a "weak performance" in the third quarter. Reports around the launch of the Sonic the Hedgehog spin-off in November had revenue for the first ten days at apparently below $250,000, a lackluster start that apparently didn't recover much in the months after.

But it's not just Tails, Amy, and Dr. Robotnik who weren't bringing in the dosh. Sega bought Angry Birds developer Rovio in 2023, and it's not been a fruitful partnership. "Did not achieve the creation of economic value through collaboration with Rovio," the slides state. Delays are noted as being an issue as well – Sonic Rumble Party took almost a year longer than planned to become publicly playable.

In response, Sega's "lowered the priority" of free-to-play projects in order to help the company's medium and long-term prospects. "Over 100" employees who were working in that space have since been moved onto the "Full Game development team focusing on mainstay IPs." In other words, Sonic Team, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio for the Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball series, Atlus for the Persona games, and beyond.

It's said that Rovio will "prioritize rebuilding first" before continuing to do what it's doing. Alas, Angry Birds lives to dive headfirst into a pile of miscellaneous blocks for another day.

In the same breath, Sega revealed the upcoming Super Game project is canceled as well. Uncertainty continues at the brand that once did what Ninten-don't, but it's nothing a new Golden Axe won't be able to fix. Yes, I'm still waiting – patiently.

I can't decide if this custom Sonic 2 controller with spin dash force feedback is genius or Eggman-levels of ridiculous.

Nintendo legend Takashi Tezuka is leaving the company after an over 40-year run at the company.

As part of its earnings report, Nintendo released an announcement of personnel changes at the company, with executive officer Takashi Tezuka's retirement announced within the document. This marks the end of a 42-year career at the company which started with the developer working on the arcade version of Punch-Out and as an assistant director on the NES game Devil World – which was only released in Japan and Europe.

Tezuka would go on to work on most major franchises Nintendo has to offer in some way, with him being involved in pretty much every single Mario game until 2026's Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Meetup in Bellabel Park, as well as having credits on both Super Mario movies.

In terms of iconic Nintendo developers, Shigeru Miyamoto is typically the name people talk about, but right there alongside him during the development of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda was Tezuka, who would then go on to direct the best 2D Mario games in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, and the arguably the best Zelda with A Link to the Past. After an assistant director role on Super Mario 64, Tezuka went on to be a producer on a ton of games, including Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Animal Crossing, and Super Mario Maker.

This is a true end of an era moment when it comes to Nintendo. Tezuka may not be as well known as Miyamoto, but his contribution to the industry is very close to being if not already on par with the Mario creator. Thankfully, one thing Nintendo has been good at in recent years is getting younger developers ready to take on the roles that these long-time devs have been a part of. This has resulted in the likes of new series like Splatoon, or new takes on existing characters, like Donkey Kong Bananza – which was directed by Kazuya Takahashi who only joined Nintendo in 2020.

Early Nintendo was a madhouse: "It was very difficult to finish Mario and then get the Mario programmers involved in the final push to finish The Legend of Zelda."

Speaking during a Q&A included with the 1994 audio CD The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama (and surfaced via Retro Gamer's 40 years of The Legend of Zelda issue) Miyamoto explained that Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda were not only being worked on simultaneously, but once Mario was finished, developers from it went to help get Zelda across the finish line.

But these were games with vastly different scales, which is why in Japan, Super Mario Bros. was a traditional game cartridge release, while Zelda was released for the floppy disk-using Famicom Disk System allowing the game to be more expansive than the relatively simple sidescroller. "We were eager to take advantage of the Disk System's features," said Miyamoto. "We were able to register names, add better sound, save the player's progress, and incorporate other new ideas, which made the game a lot of fun to make."

Zelda 1 however, can be a bit obtuse at times – especially compared to Mario – and this was something the team was conscious of. Miyamoto added, "We were worried that people wouldn't know what to do, even at the beginning of the game, and the game wouldn't be well received."

"I wanted to create a game where the player understands the history and nature of the land, and it feels like they're exploring." Miyamoto explains, "In traditional RPGs, the game progresses solely through dialogue, but we wanted the player to interact with the game world using the controller, and conquer dungeons using a simple mapping system."

The Legend of Zelda is a brutal game at times. If you take the wrong turn in the first screen of the game you'll be exploring without a sword, while others will need you to use your – ammo limited – bombs to explode seemingly random parts of the game world to progress. But despite Miyamoto's fear, Breath of the Wild would later take inspiration from the freeform exploration of the original game in its approach to the open-world formula, so all is well.

Shigeru Miyamoto thinks Zelda 2 was "sort of a failure," and A Link to the Past is the "real sequel"

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto recalls that early Nintendo was a bit of a madhouse, with Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda – which he also created – being in development at the same time.

Speaking during a Q&A included with the 1994 audio CD The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama (and surfaced via Retro Gamer's 40 years of The Legend of Zelda issue) Miyamoto recalls, "We had started development on Super Mario Bros shortly before [starting on LoZ in 1984], so we were extremely busy with planning, with the two projects progressing simultaneously." He explains, "It was very difficult to finish Mario and then get the Mario programmers involved in the final push to finish The Legend of Zelda."

Super Mario Bros – as revolutionary as it is – is pretty simple to grasp, whereas the first Zelda can be real obtuse at times, even if you take a wrong turn on the first screen you'll be left without a sword. This was something Miyamoto and the development team were conscious of, with the developer recalling "We were worried that people wouldn't know what to do, even at the beginning of the game, and the game wouldn't be well received."

Miyamoto explains, "I wanted to create a game where the player understands the history and nature of the land, and it feels like they're exploring." He adds, "In traditional RPGs, the game progresses solely through dialogue, but we wanted the player to interact with the game world using the controller, and conquer dungeons using a simple mapping system."

It is wild to think that two games that revolutionised the industry both came out so close to each other, and even wilder when they were directed by the same person and worked on by a lot of the same developers. Especially considering the average time between Mario and Zelda games nowadays is closer to half-a-decade at the minimum.

Shigeru Miyamoto thinks Zelda 2 was "sort of a failure," and A Link to the Past is the "real sequel"

The upcoming Switch 2 game Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is giving players the kind of freedom that's usually best left out of Nintendo's most child-friendly franchises. Gestures vaguely at the internet's cursed Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream ships.

Previews for the newest platformer featuring everyone's favorite green dino went live earlier this week. Yoshi's watercolor adventure looks expectedly gorgeous and innocent and cuddly, but one thing you might not expect is that players can seemingly name most of the platformer's NPCs.

VGC's Andy Robinson named one smiley flower Mr. Brexit and dubbed another mousy character Geezer, for example, and I'm sure the millions of Switch 2 owners out in the wild won't dream of calling Shy Guy anything worse, right? Right?

We don't need to look much further than Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream as evidence, a life sim that's as powerful a meme generator as its older sibling thanks to how players can create any Miis in their twisted little imaginations, and lock chibi Jennifer Coolidge in a room together with Naruto Uzumaki. Even in the demo, folks truly pushed the lack of dialogue filter to the limit, too, to the point that one former Nintendo PR lead, Kit Ellis, said that the company "might be rethinking their approach to this in the game based on what they're seeing." Nothing changed in the full release in that regard, but the lack of sharing functionality has remained firmly in place.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book doesn't offer quite the same level of control over characters, but I'm both excited for and dreading the day when players share clips of Yoshi interacting with critters named, say, Twelve Cigarettes or Edgar Edgeworth.

Whether the new Yoshi game has a content filter is unclear, but at least in the preview build, the game lets you see name recommendations from other players' systems, making restrictions of some kind seem pretty likely. If my time in online games has taught me anything, however, it's that gamers can get through any filter with enough creative spelling.

GamesRadar+'s Yoshi and the Mysterious Book preview said the platformer has "this lovely quality of experimentation that has long been part of Nintendo's best games."

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto wants to keep The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's Princess Peach backstory changes canon in Nintendo's future games.

Shigeru Miyamoto says he'd like to keep character revelations from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie intact going forward into future games in the series.

Spoilers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie to follow, read at your own risk.

In The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, some major changes were made to the canon of the series. Notably, Princess Peach and Princess Rosalina – who have barely any interaction in the game series – were revealed to be sisters, both made of stardust, and Peach ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom thanks to Rosalina sending her through a warp pipe to avoid a threat.

Previously, Peach and Rosalina's relationship was never elaborated on in the games despite a healthy amount of fan speculation, so the movie making this canon wasn't entirely unexpected.

Mario series creator Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about this change to the canon by Nintendo Dream (via machine translation). Miyamoto explains that he hadn't decided on Peach's background, and that his approach was to not be bound by having to stick to story beats established in earlier entries (which is why there were no Nintendo movies for a long time). However, when it comes to Peach's new lore, he says he'd like to stick to it as much as possible for future entries in the Mario series.

Granted, as someone who has played every mainline Mario game and probably cares about the lore more than most, I can't imagine this ever actually coming up in a game; at least not in a way that's significant. Mario games have always prioritized gameplay over pure storytelling, and while there are nuggets of info for people to dig into (Rosalina's Storybook in Mario Galaxy for example), it's never a priority.

Miyamoto felt negative Super Mario Movie reviews were "understandable" but doesn't agree with the Galaxy sequel backlash.

Yoshi is having a bit of a moment right now beyond the imminent arrival of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book. He's appearing in 2026's biggest film, which means he's also all over toy-store shelves and popcorn buckets and every other possible merchandising opportunity. And yet it's somehow been seven years since he last headlined his own videogame.

Since Yoshi's Crafted World in 2019, he's been stuck at the back of the queue while Kirby, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach and the Jumpman himself have all taken their turn to star in platforming games of one kind or another. I come to my first hands-on with Yoshi and the Mysterious Book wondering if that leaves any room for our little green dino.

It's a crowded roster, and with Mario the undisputed king of the genre, every other platforming mascot has to specialise in some way. They have to find their thing. Kirby, and latterly Peach, have cornered the market on transformations, while DK has recently pivoted into an extreme form of landscape gardening. So what exactly is Yoshi's thing?

You might point to the very particular set of moves he's been packing since 1995: the floaty jump, ground-pound, and gobbling of enemies. But, well, that sounds a lot like Kirby, doesn't it? The two are on similar turf in other ways, too, both being little cuties, both offering a more approachable way into the genre for younger players. I'll admit that, as an alleged "grown-up", I can find the latter a bit offputting – my gaming palate prefers the sophistication of Mario Mario, thank you very much.

OK, how about Yoshi as the art connoisseur of the group? Since the crayon aesthetic of Yoshi's Island, every new game has come with a fresh twist on the handcrafted visual style. And Yoshi and the Mysterious Book continues that tradition: each level exists inside the pages of a book, rendered in a kind of sketchy colored-pencil effect. In play, this actually proves to be a bit of an aesthetic step down from Crafted World's incredible art-supply dioramas – to my eye, it looks more like the watercolor filter you can apply in Donkey Kong Bananza's Photo Mode than a true bespoke visual style.

And yet, having bounced off every previous Yoshi game before the credits rolled, put off by their soft-play approach to platforming, after a couple of hours in Mysterious Book's company I'm convinced things will be different this time. And it's all thanks to Mr E, helping Yoshi to finally find his thing.

Booksmarts

Mr E drops onto Yoshi Island and politely introduces himself by his full name: Mister Encyclopedia. (Yes, 'Mr' is short for 'Mister' and yes I do find that delightful.) With his beady eyes, giant moustache, and monocle, he looks like Mr Monopoly (short, presumably, for 'Mister Monopoly') but try not to hold that against him. He's had a tough time recently, after some of his contents were mysteriously erased, and now it's up to the Yoshis to fill his pages back in.

This begins with Mr E opening up to a cutaway illustration of Wildwoods, a shaded undergrowth habitat that is essentially the first overworld of Mysterious Book. Using Mr E’s monocle as a magnifying glass, you pick one creature from the landscape to zoom in on, and are then transported into a more traditional side-on level.

I say 'traditional' – you don't beat these levels by making it to a finish line a few screens to the right, Mario-style. They're more open-ended, and completed by making a discovery. What exactly that discovery might be… well, if you knew in advance, then it wouldn't really be one, would it?

As you work your way towards this primary objective, you'll come across a lot of smaller discoveries, marked up on screen as you do with a cute little diagram and text description – kind of like if encyclopedias had achievement notifications. Generally, the first discovery you'll make in each level is: what does this critter taste like?

Yoshi still has that same moveset at his disposal, but now each action is a way of prodding at your subject and seeing what happens. Mlem! The tongue goes out, and now you know that this little beastie is bitter or sweet in the mouth. If you then try swallowing it into an egg, or spitting it back out… you might learn something else about the creature, all of which have at least a few interesting properties to be discovered and played around with.

Animal magnetism

There's this one species of beaky creatures with a leaf on their head, like a missing link from the Lotad-Ludicolo Pokémon evolutionary tree. Bounce on their heads and they'll sing a note, moving up the do-re-mi scale based (I think) on their color. One discovery waiting to be unlocked in their introductory level involves getting them to play a simple tune. But, I'll be disappointed if less tone-deaf players haven't got these leafy lads belting out Chappell Roan numbers by the summer.

Another example you might have seen in the Nintendo Direct trailer that revealed Mysterious Book to the world last September: these little dandelion-looking things that scatter into the air when you run through them and take root wherever they land, with different effects depending on what kind of surface it is. Grass causes them to grow huge and yellow, for some reason. Alighting on a boulder, they'll soften the rock up for a ground-pounding. And if you can nudge them into a pond, they'll become absorbent, allowing you to control the water levels depending on how many you plant. Precisely manipulating their movements is a pain – it's like trying to control the wind – and yet even on a tight preview deadline I can't help but persisting until I've tried out every possible combination.

Now, imagine what happens to those combinations once the game starts introducing multiple creatures into a single level. At one point I end up riding a living skateboard across water, with a bubble-blowing frog riding on my back. It's a total accident, and I've no idea if this counts as a discovery, but I can confirm it's the most I've giggled at a videogame in a while.

You might have noticed I've not used actual names for any of these weird little dudes, and that's because Mysterious Book lets you come up with your own. You can take this responsibility very seriously indeed, or else treat it as a Jackbox-style prompt to write a little joke.

There are robust profanity filters in place, naturally, but it's still a surprise to be handed naming rights by a company so infamously protective of its brands. Especially when the creature you're studying is a Shy Guy, but you've decided it should be Maskette or Colin or KaneNLynch instead, and the game just starts referring to them by that name from then on.

The only name I try that does get turned down is 'Yoshi' (my personal justification being that this is the only word in Yoshi's vocabulary). Mr E gently shuts that one down, pointing out that things are going to get confusing. It's a little thing, but I love when a game sees you coming like this, and has something ready in response – the kinds of moments that Yoshi and the Mysterious Book seems poised to deliver to curious players.

There's this lovely quality of experimentation that has long been part of Nintendo's best games, back to the bombable walls and secret exits of NES-era Zelda and Mario, but has really come to the fore since The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild. And here it is again, albeit on a much smaller scale, presented in a way more approachable to the younger audience that'll no doubt be coming to it straight from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But none of that stops me, a jaded old man, from taking the same kind of joy in it, as I poke at things just to see what will happen.

So this is Yoshi’s thing, at least for this one game. He’s a naturalist, leveraging his very particular set of skills to observe exotic lifeforms and record his findings in a book. The Charles Darwin of the Mushroom Kingdom. I can't quite believe how sold I am on that combination, nor just how impatient I am to gobble my way through a Yoshi game. Mark it down: a new discovery!

Take a look at our upcoming Switch 2 games list for more to play!

Sometimes in gaming, genres vanish. When was the last time that you played a full-on rail shooter, for instance, or a God game? Such is the fate that befell cinematic platformers, but they seem to be making a resurgence as of late with titles like American Arcadia and now Replaced filling the void that they left behind.

Cinematic platformers are often defined by their relative realism: gone are double jumps and being able to stop on a dime and crisply rotate 180 degrees in a single move. But my true measure of whether a game is a cinematic platformer is much simpler: does it make the protagonist do a whole lot of pull-ups, a la genre classics like Prince of Persia or Flashback? In Replaced's case, the answer to that is yes; it passes the pull-up test within five minutes.

Blade Run-and-gunner

Replaced puts you in the shoes of R.E.A.C.H., or, Reach to his friends (really), an AI assisting a man named Warren in the cyberpunk past of Phoenix City, 1984. An unspecified nuclear disaster in 1945 reduced the world to dystopic cities that harvest organs and defend their walls from those unfortunate enough to be stuck outside.

While planning a raid to harvest organs, another accident occurs and Reach and Warren become one, with Warren being Replaced in his own body, you see. Events transpire and you end up outside of Phoenix City, being aided by the very people you wanted to kidnap for their organs. As you might imagine, not everyone is as helpful as the refugees outside the city, and this is where the game proudly seizes another genre mainstay: combat.

Historically, combat in platformers, even cinematic platformers, has been hit and miss, but I'm happy to say it's a hit here. It uses a form of combat pioneered by the Batman Arkham series, but rendered in a 2.5D plane. A set number of enemies will fight you at any one time, with the others cheering on their buddies in the background, grimly joining the fight as you take one after another down.

You get a good range of abilities, chiefly tied to your combined baton and gun, a true Gunblade for the dystopian year of our Lord 2025. Standard hits charge the gun, which you can then use to unleash a devastating insta-kill laser blast, while another weapon joins the fray a little later allowing you to viscerally shred enemy armour with grinding precision.

If I have one key complaint about the game, it's that the visual design is very busy. The art itself is gorgeous, and often shows off the 2.5D perspective with some interesting camera shifts, but the level of detail on characters is pretty low, and with so many oversized pixels clamoring for your attention, it can be hard to get a real grip on the situation you find yourself in. Platforming is sometimes finicky, too, especially when you're dancing around deadly environmental hazards like vents that belch flames or columns of water that threaten to knock you to the ground, far below.

Light, camera, hack-tion

Despite this minor issue, it's wonderful to see a genre become revitalized. Replaced isn't the only cinematic platformer that's made me sit up and take notice in recent years. American Arcadia, the Truman Show-inflected game from Out of the Blue Games recently blew my mind after finally getting around to playing it.

In many ways, both the grim, beautifully brutalist dystopia of Replaced and the funky '70s styling of American Arcadia represent two sides of the cinematic platformer. Replaced inherits the dark and strangely brutal visual stylings of something like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and American Arcadia reflecting Prince of Persia's lighter colour palette.

Other touchstones for Replaced are obvious: Escape From New York, Unwind, and Dreamweb. Its sense of being out of time (despite strong roots in the 1980s) being spruced up with some modern combat sensibilities works in its favour, given the genre it seeks to emulate. Special mention must also be made for the music in Replaced, which is fantastic, and had me bopping my head along.

While the real pioneers of this genre, Delphine Software and Jordan Mechner, may not be making games anymore, it feels as though we're starting to see their influence trickle back into digital storefronts. Whether you're a veteran or curious to learn more, I would strongly recommend checking out Replaced, which has so far been largely a delight. It's got interesting, satisfying combat, an intriguing plot, and isn't quite like anything else in the store. Time will tell whether it gets a cult following, but it has the feel of a game that's going to garner one.

Explore all out coverage on platformer games, from Mario to Prince of Persia and beyond!

The retro homebrew scene is full of magic, but I've rarely seen anything like this: a solo dev simultaneously building an original game for six different retro platforms. This 3D platformer, called Noah and the Poohloudies, is filled with creature collecting and raising elements, and it's in development for PS1, N64, Saturn, Dreamcast, 3DO, and N-Gage. Yes, really. That N-Gage.

In a 2021 interview, developer Walfrido Abejón described the game as "Super Mario 64 meets Pokemon meets Tamagochi." You're charged with rescuing a bunch of robots, which have been driven mad by an impending meteor crash. So you've got to defeat them, capture them, and store them in your backpack to make use of their special abilities – all the while making sure they've got the food, water, and medicine they need to survive.

That'd be a pretty fun pitch regardless of what platform it's on, but Noah and the Poohloudies gets way more intriguing because of the wide array of retro consoles it's being made for. These days a game is pretty much the same wherever you end up playing it – Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, and PC editions of a title might have resolution and frame rate differences, but they're all offering pretty much the same experience. That was not the case in the '90s, when contemporary 3D consoles were all vastly different, and ports of the same game between those platforms were sometimes barely recognizable from each other.

To Abejón, it's a challenge – but not a particularly remarkable one. "I'm no one special, if I can do it everyone can," the dev says in a Reddit comment. "Just have to have a lot of patience because development is way slower for these platforms."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Abejón reckons that the Dreamcast is easiest to work with, since it is the most modern thing on the platform list. "But every console of that generation is very picky with how they want the information to be processed, so they are all challenging for different reasons."

The 3DO, an ill-fated console headed up by EA founder Trip Hawkins, is "probably the toughest platform I'm facing at the moment," according to Abejón. "Hope I can squeeze a few more fps out of the system before having to resort to reducing draw distance or similar actions."

And why port it to the infamous N-Gage? The hybrid cell phone and game console might've been considered ahead of its time if it hadn't been such an infamous failure, turning into the butt of many a retro gaming YouTuber's off-hand jokes. "Well, I had one at home and I was curious what would happen," Abejón says.

For me, the greatest gaming community stories are those that begin and end with a thought along the lines of 'I wanted to know if I could do it.' The fact that Noah and the Poohloudies seems to be coalescing into an actually cool video game is just icing on the cake.

Nintendo 64 gets a Skyrim-sized open-world game as dev busts the infamous fog that's defined the console for 30 years.

Super Mario 64 speedrunning legend Suigi currently holds world records in all five of the game's major categories. Earlier this year, he started a crowdfunded bounty worth over $10,000 as he practically begged for somebody to beat any of his times. So far, however, Suigi himself has proven to be the only one up to the task, as he's just broken one of his own world records for the third time since the bounty got underway.

When Suigi claimed all five Super Mario 64 records, the game's speedrun scene was soon declared "dead" – and unlike similar declarations for other games, that's proven to pretty much be true. Nobody but Suigi has held a major Super Mario 64 record since November 17, 2024.

That's why Suigi himself decided to put out a bounty on his own times, putting $1,000 on the line for anybody who could manage to beat any of his world records. With additional crowdfunding from other members of the Mario speedrunning community, that bounty is now worth $11,370. Yet nobody has managed to step.

Nobody, that is, except for Suigi himself. Obviously, he's not eligible to claim his own bounty, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to break his own records. He set back-to-back new records in the 70 Star category just days apart in February. Now he's broken his 120 Star record, which had itself stood since 2024.

Suigi's new 120 Star record sits at 1:35:25. While that's an improvement of just three seconds over his previous record, the scary thing is that it could be so, so much better. Suigi actually suffered a death in the middle of the run – during the notorious Tick Tock Clock level – and underperformed in the game's final stages. Yet, even with those flaws, he still managed to set a new record.

And all that room for improvement means that a run within the 1:34:XX range is on the table. Not necessarily right now, though, as Suigi said after the run that he's "almost happy" to have "the privilege" of getting to set his next personal best within the 1:35s rather than crossing the next minute barrier.

"You know what I'm saying?" Suigi mused. "Like, I don't have to go straight to 1:34. We already did that with 1:35. Like, we don't need to do it again." Clearly, there's no pressure for the undisputed king of Super Mario 64 speedrunning, but if anybody else hopes to claim the crown they'd better step up soon.

After 40 years, Super Mario Bros speedrunners discover "the Holy Grail of glitches."

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie launched weeks ago, and ever since, I've been fawning over its many, many toys. The Hatchin' Yoshi is definitely up there with the best toys I've laid my eyes on as a Super Mario fan, but there's plenty besides the interactive green dino, ranging from articulated figures of Rosalina and Bowser Jr to glow-in-the-dark Luma yo-yos.

I feel like I've barely spent time eyeing them up for my collection, and yet multiple Super Mario Galaxy Movie toys are seeing discounts for the very first time today. Most notably, the 5-inch posable figures that include everyone from Yoshi in his New York City cap, to Mario with a little Luma friend, now start from $19.97 at Amazon, instead of their full $21.99 MSRP. Even the playsets, which include detailed replicas of Bowser's castle to the Gateway Galaxy, are cheaper, and the film is barely a few weeks old.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hasn't had the best critical reception, with even GamesRadar+'s own Bradley Russell stating that it "never quite reaches Galaxy's gravity-defying game heights", but I don't think that's why its toys are seeing discounts for the very first time. While it may not have been as well-received as its predecessor, according to Variety, it's still managed to rake in "$69 million from 4,284 North American theaters" in its second weekend of release.

Not to mention, toys for the first movie also went on sale after release. It's why, despite being more of a fan of Mario and friends' depictions in the games, I own a large amount of toys from Illumination's first Super Mario Movie. My gaming room has everything from the fire-breathing Bowser figure to the mini van playset. I was very much hoping to see toys from Super Mario Galaxy Movie drop down in price too so I could add them to my collection. I was just not expecting it to happen so soon.

If you're a Princess Rosalina fan, her 5-inch posable figure is going to be the most intriguing of the recent discounts. She has up to 10 points of articulation, and this remains one of the most detailed depictions of her in toy form, besides her new Super Mario Galaxy amiibo. She's discounted alongside Bowser Jr, Yoshi, and the Mario figure.

Sadly, Luigi's toy is not included, but you can get a small version of him if you don't mind buying the entire set of 1.5” Star Launcher figurines. These are sold separately in toy stores (I've seen them for myself), but Amazon has the entire collection available for $47.99 (Amazon), which is 13% off its full $55 MSRP, and little Luigi is there in all his adorable moustache and green glory. The best part of these new price drops for me doesn't come down to the tiny Luigi, as much as I adore him, but the detailed playsets.

This includes Bowser's Castle I mentioned earlier. It's now $39.99 at Amazon, and includes a ton of references to the movie, from Bowser's bonsai tree, his little cauldron where he makes soup for book club, and heat-revealing replicas of his paintings. My favorite of these playsets is hands-down the Gateway Galaxy Diorama, which even includes the ROB cameo and all for just $19.99 at Amazon instead of its full $21.99 MSRP.

If you're a UK Super Mario fan or want to buy these toys while they're cheaper to prepare for a future birthday or two, the discounts have yet to make their way across the pond. It's not all doom and gloom, however. Smyths Toys has discounted the Bowser Jr. Clown Car Set to £29.99 (Smyths Toys), which is better than nothing. Just like the first movie's toys, I also suspect it won't be long until the rest follow suit with stellar discounts of their own.

• View all Super Mario Galaxy Movie Toys at Amazon
• View all Super Mario toys at Amazon

Our guides to the best Nintendo gifts and the best Lego sets are full of more Super Mario toys and collectibles.

Once upon a time, Gabe Newell was just a former Microsoft employee who had founded a small game studio and was helping build a new sci-fi FPS. That game, Half-Life, would soon become an industry-shaking success story and launch the true legacy of Steam god GabeN, but it didn't pop up out of nowhere. No, Half-Life had a notable list of influences that Newell revealed back in 1998, including the one and only Super Mario 64.

"The three games that had the biggest impact on Half-Life were Ultima Underworld, Mario 64, and Resident Evil 2," Newell said in an interview for the December 1998 issue of Next Generation magazine. "Ultima Underworld was so much more of an immersive experience than the other first-person shooters. Resident Evil 2 really inspired us to take the creepiness and horror in Half-Life seriously, without giving in to the temptation to be campy about it."

Ultima Underworld is perhaps the least well-remembered of those games, if only because its own franchise hasn't continued into the modern day. But its open-ended approach to player agency would serve as the blueprint for the immersive sim genre, building the formula for everything from Deus Ex to BioShock. And, of course, Resident Evil 2's influence on horror gaming is impossible to overstate.

As for Super Mario 64? Well, on top of being one of the best N64 games ever made, Newell said that's "just a great inspiration on so many levels from things like having spaces that can be traversed multiple times and still be fun to a much less punitive method of handling player failure."

I'm very curious what Newell meant about that "less punitive" penalty for failure, but alas, he didn't go into any more detail. Super Mario 64 still has lives, as in older Mario games, but the fact that you can constantly save your progress means you're never in danger of losing much when those lives run out. Maybe you could draw a parallel between that system and the generous quick saves Half-Life allows you to make use of.

While Half-Life is primarily remembered for its excellent single-player campaign, it also has a deathmatch mode – and it seems Newell was not very good at it. Asked by Next Generation if he was the best Half-Life player at Valve, Newell responded: "Not even close."

"Several of the people at Valve have won international competitions," Newell added. "I used to think I was pretty hot stuff when I was just playing against other people at Microsoft, but nowadays I just get crushed. We may have to do a strategy game just so I can regain my self esteem. Either that or add a deathmatch mode to Mario 64."

I'm pretty sure there's some sort of romhack out there that could cater to that demand these days, but either way, it's amusing to see Newell apparently so much more confident in his skills with Nintendo's platformer than the FPS game he helped to make. But GabeN's love of Super Mario 64 has been consistent throughout his career.

Years later, in a 2011 interview with CVG, Newell would say that Super Mario 64 is "still my favourite game of all time. I still have vivid memories of all the different levels. The control is still pretty much unrivalled. It convinced me that games were art." Maybe we should've been thanking Shigeru Miyamoto for indirectly creating Steam this whole time.

Gabe Newell "stepped back" from making games at Valve after Portal 2 because everyone kept agreeing with him when he wanted "to be part of the team and come up with ideas."

Maintaining a live-service game is costly, and it's especially tricky for developers on the independent side. Hence, the devs behind free multiplayer platformer eWorlds have decided they need to add a price tag to keep the release operational.

Since fully coming out in October 2024, eWorlds has been the low, low cost of free. Sadly, such a model isn't keeping the lights on as easily, and developer GGTech Studios is now transitioning to making it a premium product, where copies will cost $3.99.

"Since launch, we have loved seeing you play, explore, and enjoy the multiplayer experience," the company says in the announcement.

"However, as time goes on, keeping the servers active indefinitely requires covering costs that the current free format does not allow us to offset," it states. Thus, starting April 16, the new price point will be introduced for any new players.

Before then? You can still get it for absolutely nothing, giving a week's grace period for anyone who was thinking about jumping, or who simply wants the option of playing without having to hand over any amount of money. According to GGTech Studios, this income is specifically for "covering server costs and ensuring the multiplayer matches stay operational."

The player count for eWorlds hasn't been huge, the last recorded high being 695 according to SteamDB. Time will tell if the community remains consistent enough to futureproof the project more solidly.

The statement ends by pointing out something obvious but necessary, which is that this is really for the continued survival and growth of the game. "We know that transitioning from a free to a premium model is a significant change, but we consider it necessary to sustain eWorlds' servers in the long term," the devs state.

As Just Cause lead's new action game stumbles to mixed reviews, director promise fixes for "unacceptable" bugs and performance woes: "Samson is here to stay."

Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a Mario master? Challenges don't come much tougher than this, as one intrepid Mario Maker creator has made Bowser Jr.'s security gauntlet from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie for players to try.

KoopsReturns on Twitter has put together a recreation of Bowser Jr.'s fiendish attempts to keep Mario and Peach away from his grand plans – complete with rotating Fire Bars, saws, and maddening platforming segments that will keep your thumbs busy.

For those who want to hop on Super Mario Maker 2 now to give it a shot (good luck!), the Course ID code is 1CM-P5R-8LG, for the level titled 'Meet Your Maker'.

The creator added that any cuts away from Bowser's screen for Mario's POV have been "made as approximations of the obstacles seen in the 3D part of the sequence."

Mercifully, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie itself hasn't proved as much of a headache as its Mario Maker counterpart with audiences – grossing over $400 million at the box office as of writing, even if its critical Rotten Tomatoes score of 42% is sitting below the 2023 original.

While the Mario movie sequel's most obvious game-playing nod made its way into Mario Maker, there are plenty of other Super Mario Galaxy Movie Easter eggs you may have missed out on – including an unlikely nod to Super Metroid.

That's without taking into account Glen Powell's Fox, who took over the film for several sustained sequences, despite Mario creator and Super Mario Galaxy Movie executive producer Shigeru Miyamoto originally anticipating significant internal resistance to the idea of dropping the Star Fox character into Mario's universe. Just don't expect any Smash Bros. team-ups anytime soon.

For more, check out our verdict with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie review. Then, jump over to the ranking of best Mario games.

Mark Cerny is best known as the soft-spoken engineer who serves as PlayStation's lead console architect, having designed the PS4, PS5, and yes, even the Vita. But his history with PlayStation goes back much further to his time as president of Universal Interactive Studios, where he helped produce Spyro the Dragon. Despite the executive title, Cerny was very serious about the game, to the point where he was single-handedly trying to kick off its speedrunning scene back in 1998.

In the December 1998 issue of Next Generation magazine, Cerny was asked if he was the best at Spyro, which had just launched a few months earlier. "I don't know," he replied. "I'm thinking of having a competition among the team to see who can finish the game fastest. I'll put up a large monetary prize, thus motivating me to practice a lot, become the best, and not have to pay out any money."

This was, of course, well before speedruns had become popular, and the communities racing to beat single-player games as quickly as possible were fairly niche. Nonetheless, Cerny was keen to get normal Spyro players in on the action.

"I've reached and beaten Gnasty Gnorc in 105 minutes," Cerny said, referring to the game's final boss. "If anyone can beat that, please send me your time." He even included an email address for speedrunning fans to send their times into.

It's unclear if anybody took up Cerny's challenge at the time, but the modern Spyro speedrunning community recognizes his ambition. His 1 hour and 45 minute time is listed as the first world record for Spyro on Speedrun.com, and it took more than 12 years for anyone to beat it. Or, at least, it took that long for anybody to upload and verify a faster time online.

This bit of trivia was mentioned in a recent Summoning Salt video going over the history of Spyro world records, which is what you'll want to look at if you want a detailed breakdown of how the game's speedrunning scene has evolved since Cerny first laid out his challenge. Spoiler alert: the times are a lot faster these days.

Spyro the Dragon speedrunner caps off a 5-month grind with a legendary world record milestone: "They said it couldn't be done!"

Fox McCloud's designer isn't getting an early screening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, though a former Nintendo developer who worked on the likes of Star Fox and Super Mario 64 says that sort of thing has been the norm for a while, as even working on a game doesn't guarantee you a copy of it.

Earlier this week, the character designer for Star Fox, Takaya Imamura, said that – despite creating Fox McCloud – he won't be getting the chance to see his character in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie earlier than the rest of Japan (where the movie is set to release later this month on April 24). In a Tweet (translated by Genki_JPN), Imamura speculated that it was due to a common practice among Japanese companies of drawing a line with people who quit.

Another Star Fox veteran, Giles Goddard – who helped develop the original game alongside his former Argonaut coworkers before going on to work on titles like Stunt Race FX, Super Mario 64, and 1080 Snowboarding – chimed in with his own experience. Responding to Genki, Goddard says, "We weren't given copies of the game back then either." He explains, "Games used to sell out in stores so we'd wait until supply caught up with demand."

Granted, I don't think Imamura is too cut up about things, as when Fox McCloud was revealed for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie – in one of the biggest spoiler marketing moves in a hot minute – he said he was "overwhelmed with emotion," and thanked Shigeru Miyamoto for including the character. And given that Glen Powell's Fox is a lot of people's favorite part of the film, I'm sure he's overjoyed. Maybe they'll invite him along if a Star Fox movie ever gets made.

Miyamoto anticipated "significant resistance" to Fox McCloud in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

A massive trove of court documents related to Universal's 1983 lawsuit against Nintendo has suddenly become publicly available online. These documents include everything from mundane court records to testimony from Nintendo legends like Shigeru Miyamoto, Gunpei Yokoi, and Hiroshi Yamauchi. Perhaps most immediately interesting are some of Miyamoto's original ideas for Donkey Kong.

Video game researchers are already combing through these documents for new insights into Nintendo history, and you're free to do the same – they're all available for your perusal on the Internet Archive. These documents come courtesy of excellent YouTuber Norman Caruso, who you might know better as The Gaming Historian. Today, Caruso announced that he's retiring from his YouTube channel, but as a "parting gift" he's left us with these documents, which he scanned from the National Archives in Kansas City while researching for a video he no longer plans to finish.

The documents all relate to Universal's lawsuit against Nintendo over what it claimed were similarities between its film, King Kong, and Nintendo's arcade game, Donkey Kong. As a result, much of the material concerns the origins of the Donkey Kong character, and the name that both he and the game share. In one development document, Miyamoto laid out a stack of potential names for the arcade game, including:

• Giant Kong
• Big Kong
• Kong on the Run
• Kong Chase
• Steel Kong
• Mad Kong
• Heart & Kong
• Lady & Kong
• Attack the Kong
• Kong Attacker
• City Kong
• Build On
• Family Kong
• Funny Kong

In a testimony given during the trial, Miyamoto said that Build On was his "favorite name for the game." I guess it makes sense given the game's construction theme, but I gotta say, I'm glad Miyamoto lost that fight.

But there is another major revelation from Miyamoto's testimony that's blowing my mind. He tried to make Donkey Kong "close to a human being as compared to the usual gorilla," he said. "And I tried to make it as a human being wearing stuffed doll." There's some awkward wording in the deposition because of the translation, but Miyamoto later clarified, "What I meant by stuffed doll is the actor, in other words a human being, wearing gorilla costume and act like a human being."

So yes, Miyamoto originally envisioned Donkey Kong not as a gorilla, but as a man in a gorilla suit. I can only imagine how something like Donkey Kong Bananza might look if Miyamoto's headcanon had carried forward.

There's much, much more waiting to be found in these documents, which comprise 1.3 gigabytes of material, and you can be sure that video game historians are already picking them apart for new insights into Nintendo's early days in game development.

If you want to relive Nintendo's '80s era, check out our guide to the best NES games ever made.

Over a year ago, an ordinary player stumbled upon a crash while playing the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 on Nintendo Switch. In itself, that's not such a wild thing – even old games crash now and then – but the specifics of this glitch turned out to have massive implications for the speedrunning community. This ended up being the first step in essentially reprogramming the game as it runs to do anything you want, and now, after a year of work, speedrunners have applied those lessons to the original Super Mario Bros. as well.

This glitch is a door to arbitrary code execution. ACE exploits take advantage of bugs in a game's code to input new instructions that were never intended by the original developers, opening the door to all kinds of wild shenanigans. Speedrunners, for example, might use ACE to warp directly to a game's end credits.

"No one thinks this is, like, actually the same as beating the game normally," Kosmic explains in a new video breaking down the year-long effort he and other Mario speedrunners undertook to get ACE working in Super Mario Bros. 1. But it does deepen everyone's knowledge of the game in question, and offers a door to layered, wild opportunities to manipulate the game's inner workings.

"This glitch means we choose what code the game executes," Kosmic explains. "You can basically make the game do whatever you want. That's why it's the Holy Grail of glitches."

The specifics of how it works are far too complicated to detail here – there's a reason Kosmic's video is over an hour long – but in essence, it involves making sure certain enemies are loaded into the game in a particular order all at the same time. Once the crash was uncovered, it was relatively simple to replicate it in the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, where all the proper ingredients come together in the game's normal final stage, 8-4.

It was not nearly so easy to find a spot in the original Super Mario Bros. where the same ACE exploit could be performed. In fact, no such place exists, at least in the game as it was intended. So, the only way to find all the necessary enemies in place is to go to the infamous, glitched Minus World in – specifically – the Famicom Disk System version of the game.

But even that's making it sound too simple, because Kosmic and other runners spent the better part of the past year trying to figure out the exact combination of actions to get ACE working. One member of the community, 100th_Coin, had to rewrite existing NES emulators because they weren't accurate enough for testing.

So what's it all entail? Well, you need to beat the game once through the Minus World to unlock the second quest, which turns all the Goombas into Buzzy Beetles. Then you restart the game, die as fast as possible as Mario, then run to the Minus World as Luigi, collecting power-ups along the way. In the Minus World, you need to move past the flagpole, kill the first Bowser you see, manipulate a particular Buzzy Beetle to run to the right, and stay on the ground until another Bowser loads.

All together, that causes the game to skip out of normal code execution to start reading code from the PPU, the part of the NES that actually draws the graphics you see on-screen. "We make sure the data here at this exact moment gives us the right value," Kosmic explains, "and we do this by using the height of the Blooper on screen. This makes a one-byte, or in other words a very small, change to the game, which will remain when we hit reset. This change corrupts the routine of powerups. So when they come out of blocks, we get a jump to RAM. And from here, we're kind of home free. We can control what instructions the game runs because we can control what numbers are in memory when it arrives here."

As a speedrun trick, it's not particularly useful, as it actually takes longer to do the ACE exploit than it does to beat the game normally. But that's not really the point – the real goal here is just to expand the bounds of what's possible while playing Mario. "We can make Mario swim in the air," Kosmic says. "We can do whatever we want. The point of ACE is that it's awesome. At the end of the day, it's not meant to compete with regular runs. It's just amazing that it works at all."

This is, after all, what speedruns are all about – at least in my mind. Beating games quickly is just a byproduct of the real work, which is breaking the constraints of those games down as far as they'll go and figuring out what's possible as more and more barriers start to disappear. Even now, 40 years later, it's astonishing to know Super Mario Bros. still has some secrets left to discover.

These are the best Mario games you can play.

Jak and Daxter fans are eating good as all three of the Naughty Dog PS2 classics now have native PC ports.

As spotted by Time Extension the team behind OpenGoal released a beta of its PC port of Jak 3, which following previous efforts now means that all three games in the trilogy are now "feature complete and fully completable" on PC. The original game in the trilogy Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is the only PC version not considered in beta as both Jak 2 and 3 feature some audio bugs and graphical issues, but for those who can look by some issues, you can now play the entire Naughty Dog series on PC with widescreen, 4K 60 FPS, and modding support – provided you own original copies of the games to dump the files off of to install the ports in the first place.

The 2020s may have had some all-time great games release, but its safe to say it's been a horrible decade for the industry in pretty much every other metric given the amount of layoffs, studio closures, game cancellations, and the rise of AI slop. But if the 2020s has given us something amazing it's got to be the decompilation and recompilation efforts that have made amazing strides for game preservation by giving once console-only titles native PC ports that not only give them a new lease on life, but allow players to tinker with them to make brilliant changes that can amount to remaster status.

And while these efforts have naturally mostly focused on Nintendo titles like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Star Fox 64, but as it becomes more popular, efforts are branching out, with the Sonic Unleashed Recompiled release in 2025 being one of the most impressive fan efforts ever. And now PlayStation fans get in on the action as one of the most iconic trilogies ever is now fully available on PC.

Nintendo 64 classic Banjo-Kazooie gets fanmade PC port with 60 FPS and widescreen, and the series creator has paid tribute in classic Gruntilda fashion: "Recompiled, oh my word! People just love the bear and bird!"

Being a part of the Super Mario universe doesn't stop you from experiencing prime Mario Kart, as Princess Rosalina actress Brie Larson found out in a way that's awful for her but great for us watching.

In a video for IGN, the cast of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie had a mini Mario Kart Tournament. And during a race between the host, Larson, and the Bowser family of Jack Black and Benny Safdie, the Rosalina actress got well and truly Mario Kart-ed. Chris Pratt asked Larson about having a Luma of her own, and the actress seems overjoyed about the question ("Oh my gosh, what a fantastic question"), and then it strikes.

Larson – who is naturally playing as Rosalina – is struck by a Red Shell while flying over a gap, sending her into a pit below, and the joy of the Luma question is gone instantly: "Are you actually kidding right now?" And after recovering, she is then subsequently hit with a second Red Shell, losing her first-place lead and allowing Benny Safdie to sneak by with the win.

Mario Kart is many things. An iconic racing game series, the creator of an entire genre, the most successful spinoff of all-time (well, second if you count Mario as a spinoff of Donkey Kong), and – most of all – pure evil. While not quite as deranged as Mario Party, Mario Kart loves to mess with you all the time, and while people have definitely gotten in fights over shooter or fighting game tournaments, Mario Kart is where the big boys play, where wars are waged, and where I always get hit by that lightning bolt whenever I'm going over a big jump and ruining my lead.

But the good thing about that is that it's a universal experience. Everyone has an example of a time when the Mario Kart gods personally attacked them, especially that one guy playing as Daisy. But it's good to know the game's evil nature extends to those in the Super Mario Universe.

Illumination CEO says the "secret" to success of the Super Mario movies is working directly with Miyamoto and Nintendo

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is here, and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto says it's finally allowed him to put "some meat" on an idea that he and Super Mario Galaxy game director Yoshiaki Koizumi discussed during the development of the 2007 game, but never actually "came to a conclusion" about.

Before we get into it, there are some implied spoilers below for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but we're not going to go into the full details in case you've not seen it yet. However, you might want to scroll with caution if you want to go into the new movie totally blind.

That idea surrounds Peach and Rosalina's "actual relationship," something that's been a mystery ever since the release of the 2007 Wii classic. Rosalina in general is a pretty mysterious character, and as with anything, folks have had their theories about her and how she might connect to other members of the Mario cast – namely, Peach. After all, the two of them have some very similar features (primarily, both having blond hair and blue eyes), and in Rosalina's Storybook in Galaxy, which depicts the backstory of the space princess, her mother bears a striking resemblance to the Mushroom Kingdom's ruler.

Up until now, though, Nintendo hasn't elaborated on if there's any actual connection between the two, or if it just has a penchant for creating blond ladies. I suppose there's not really been much room for big lore drops to have happened in their joint appearances racing against each other and playing all manner of sports. But that's now changed, and in a new interview with Forbes about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Miyamoto says he and Koizumi had previously discussed the pair's relationship when making the 2007 game – it just didn't go anywhere.

"When we were developing Super Mario Galaxy, the director for that game, Yoshiaki Koizumi, and I were discussing what Rosalina and Peach's actual relationship was," Miyamoto begins. "We had this vague idea about what their actual relationship could be, and how it would play into the concept of space. We had a lot of discussion about this, but we never came to a conclusion. So we decided that let's take this opportunity to give this idea some meat and get into the specificity of it, and we had a lot of fun having this discussion back and forth."

Well, it's taken the best part of 20 years, but better late than never, right? The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is out now in cinemas, so we can finally see what conclusion Miyamoto came to.

Shigeru Miyamoto thought there would be "significant resistance" at Nintendo to Fox McCloud appearing in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.